


Interregnum

by ObeyHeda



Series: Heavy Lies the Crown [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon divergent after 2x14, F/F, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Romance, Smut
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2016-01-09
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:55:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 37,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObeyHeda/pseuds/ObeyHeda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As it does except for in some very small and rare moments, time passes. In the months between their victory at Mount Weather and the spring when they'll begin their journey to Polis, Clarke and Lexa must face a raging flood, the rise of a brave new warrior, the harshness of winter, the Chancellor's protective streak, and a knife in the dark. </p><p>Sequel to Rebirthed Kings and Queens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A limit where we break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A storm is coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...we're back! I loved hearing how much you guys enjoyed Rebirthed Kings and Queens (previously Heavy Lies the Crown) and I just couldn't wait to share Interregnum with you all! Sorry for the hella long chapter; my original plan was for it to be one slightly long thing but then it turned into a longer and an even longer thing so I figured I'd spare you the novel and break it up a bit. Anyhoo, as usual, I LOVE to hear your thoughts - give them to me! I want them. I promise I'll think back.
> 
> Sorry, I'm extremely sleep-deprived. If you're reading this and you haven't read Rebirthed Kings and Queens, you should probably go do that first. Chapter title is from "Let the River In," Dotan. As usual, notes on Trigedasleng at the end.

Clarke steps out of the tent into a gorgeous morning, the sky a vault of blue above the tops of the trees and the air crisp and cool with a hint of petrichor. She raises her arms above her head, stretching out the kinks of a long day of training and building and a long night of things that make her grin and blush. She takes a minute to watch the waking village of Tondc and just _breathe._

She can’t remember the last time she did this – just stayed still and felt the air move through her, and luxuriated in the openness of the world turning around her. The Ark had been home but it had always felt somehow claustrophobic – you could never escape the sense that this was all there was, and that perhaps humans weren’t meant to live this way. That sensation had only intensified during her time in solitary confinement, but then she’d fallen to Earth and suddenly the world had opened up before her like a painting come to life, all vast expanses and screaming colors.

That had lasted all of three hours, at which point Jasper had been speared to a tree. Everything afterwards had been about running, hiding, hunting, fighting – _surviving._ There had never been a moment like this, in which she could simply pause, suck in a deep breath, and just _live._

Her stomach growls. The moment’s over.

“Hey sleepyhead,” she calls back over her shoulder as she focuses on the smell of frying breakfast food, “if you don’t get up you’ll miss the bacon.”

“No I won’t,” she hears a sleep-roughened voice growl back. “I am Heda. There is always bacon for Heda.”  

“I guess you haven’t had breakfast with Octavia, then,” Clarke says, rolling her eyes. “Does the phrase _plague of locusts_ mean anything to you?”

“It does, yes,” Lexa says, stumbling out of the tent and rubbing at her eyes in a way that Clarke _definitely_ doesn’t find adorable. “I take your point.”

“And I’ll take your bacon if you don’t _hos op,”_ Clarke says, grinning as the Commander scowls at her.

The grin drops off her face a moment later as Lexa repeats, “ _Hos op._ Your inflection was off on _hos._ Say it again.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. Lexa may have gotten a bit better at sleeping in since the addition of Clarke as an incentive, but that hasn't made her any less of a morning person. “Isn’t it too early for a Trigedasleng lesson?”

“Never too early.” Lexa raises her head and sniffs the air, then heads back into the tent for her coat. She shrugs into it as they make their way together towards the camp ground where breakfast is being laid, and Lexa allows herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, this cold snap after a solid week of thunderstorms could be the end of the rainy season, and they might just have the superlative harvest this village sorely needs. But it’s early yet for that by a good two weeks. This is likely just a respite, an eye in the greater storm. Still, maybe she’ll get to feel dry for the first time in the last month.

By the time they reach breakfast most of the villagers have already come and gone. The only ones remaining are her warriors and the Skaikru, though they should be on their way soon enough to their work assignments. She politely reminds Harper of this as she passes, and the girl nods seriously. She’s become an excellent overseer, a quietly natural leader that the others look to instinctively. She and Jasper Jordan have become co-leaders of the group the people of Tondc have come to refer to as _Sistenkru_ – the Volunteers.

It’s Harper’s turn in Tondc this week, for which Lexa’s glad. The Sky boy has yet to fully overcome his distrust of her people, and his high-spirited antics can sometimes turn disruptive, even mean. She knows that Clarke’s had to mediate several conflicts between him and Indra, whose patience with him is at an absolute zero. The last blowout had occasioned a hurried negotiation with the seething general, who had demanded that the boy be banned from her village. Clarke had managed to persuade her to accept Harper as a co-leader instead, knowing that as the majority of the Volunteers came from the 47 they would take Jasper’s exile very hard, and many might not come back. Having one of their own at all times makes it a bit easier for them to accept, and Indra doesn’t mind Harper. Even likes her sometimes, Lexa can tell, though the Sky girl probably doesn’t know it – Indra’s method of showing her approval looks like the way most people treat someone they only mildly dislike.

Harper is conferring with Indra now as to the Volunteers’ work assignments. They’re turning the main crater into a pen for the village's animals, and the Volunteers are to be working on the fence, Lexa overhears as she fills her plate with breakfast. She's got one ear on Clarke moving along behind her, and hears the Sky Girl humming absently to herself as she goes. A small grin crosses her face.

True to form, the Blake siblings have already laid waste to the banquet table and are coming back for more, but Lexa manages to snag the last few slices for herself and Clarke just as Octavia’s reaching for them. _“Dammit!”_ the girl says, incredulity on her face. “How did you do that?”

Lexa smirks. “Too slow, _Seken._ I’ll need to tell your _Fos_ to work on your reflexes.”

Octavia groans and returns to her seat with Bellamy amongst the warriors of the _shiljus_. They’re not officially bonded by blood yet, but that will come in time – Lexa has work to do yet in training them and turning them into a seamless unit, a strike force she can be proud to have at her back and that she can trust implicitly with Clarke’s safety. While the first objective is important, she knows that she has many skilled warriors who will lay down their lives for her already. The second objective is what she most often has in mind when she’s drilling them and training them and putting them through their paces in the sparring ring. It’s the only way she can make herself accept what Clarke has come to mean to her, what it might mean if Clarke comes to harm. While she knows that Clarke can take care of herself, sooner or later her position as Ambassador of her people and her closeness to the Heda of the Trigedakru will make her a target. Clarke is a dangerous weakness for Lexa, a straight shot to the heart. To remain able to protect and guide her people, Lexa must protect her heart. To do that, she must protect Clarke.  

The Skaikru have made slow progress with Trikru weaponry, with the exception of Octavia who, Lexa has to grudgingly admit, is something of a prodigy, but the rest still lean far too heavily on their firearms. While the fall of Mount Weather has theoretically lifted the prohibition on Grounders taking up the weapons, Lexa still remains wary of guns as a concept. She can’t quite fathom the Skaikru’s preference for weapons with such clear limitations and has forbidden their use during her training sessions, but she is under no such illusions that that prohibition holds during the Bloodguard’s time at Camp Jaha.

She'd had precisely that conversation with Bellamy Blake shortly after they had started training. From Clarke’s stories and her own brief interactions with him, she had imagined that the Sky boy would be a disciplinary problem, but after she had managed, during one of their first hand-to-hand combat demonstrations, to disarm and completely incapacitate Ryder within seconds while unarmed herself, he had given her his grudging respect. His sister is another story, but thankfully, Indra - the only person Octavia honestly seems to fear - drills with the group too.

Bellamy had come up to her after a particularly discouraging introductory session with the bow (led by Ryder, who’s the best there is with the weapon), while most of his compatriots were groaning and nursing stung fingers. His own were reddened and flexing, but only his tense jaw showed that he was in pain. “With all due respect, Commander, what’s the point of learning how to use these?” He gestured towards the racks where the bows had been hung. “I’d say we should be teaching your people how to shoot guns.”

Lexa had eyed him narrowly for any hint of disrespect, but had found none in the level gaze he returned. “Have you ever run out of ammunition, Bellamy Blake?”

“Yes.”

Lexa nodded. “Blades do not run out of bullets; arrows can be gathered and repurposed after a battle, and bows can be restrung. Once your supply of ammunition has been exhausted, your gun is no better than a club. I won’t deny your people the opportunity to use them, because I’ve seen their effectiveness, but you will also become proficient in weapons you don’t need to reload.”

Bellamy had nodded, accepting this, but then his head had snapped up again and Lexa had seen the glint of inspiration in his eye. “What if we could teach your warriors how to fight with our weapons, as we’re learning about yours? Your soldiers would be doubly effective if they could shoot, and then be just as good with a sword or an axe after they run out of rounds.”

Lexa considered. It wasn’t a bad idea – in fact, it was a good one, one she’d been toying with idly for some time. If she were in Bellamy Blake’s position she wouldn’t hesitate to implement it, but she’s not in his position – she’s Heda of the Trigedakru, and she has the weight of nearly a century of tradition to consider. She’s already broken some of the laws and traditions of her people and bent many others, and she can feel the weight of the last straw on her like iron. There’s only so much further she can push the coalition before it breaks. If it does, she won't let it be over guns.

“I will not be holding training with firearms in my camp,” Lexa had said at last, and watched Bellamy’s jaw grind and his eyes harden. He opened his mouth, probably to say something disrespectful that would mean she’d have to make an example out of him. She didn't want to do that so she was quick to continue with, “ _But_ I do not know what I do not know. Do we understand one another, Bellamy Blake?”

It had taken a moment, but soon comprehension had dawned in the Sky boy’s eyes. “Yes, Commander,” he’d said, and if she noticed that some of her warriors had returned from Camp Jaha with a little more than passing familiarity with the weapons of the Sky People, she’d turned a blind eye. That was Abby Griffin’s jurisdiction, after all, not hers.

Bellamy approaches her as she sits and begins to eat. “What’s on the agenda for today, Commander?”

“Knives in the morning,” Lexa says after chewing her bacon very deliberately in Octavia’s direction – Clarke rolls her eyes – “and then we’ll go riding in the afternoon. Hand-to-hand in the evening, when it’s not so hot.”

Bellamy’s shoulders slump. “Is the riding necessary?”

“Yes,” Lexa says sharply. “I know riding doesn’t come naturally to you but that doesn’t mean you can neglect it. A small mounted force can turn the tide of a much greater one on foot. Have you heard of Tysburg?” Bellamy shakes his head. “It’s a place about a day’s ride from here, where a great battle happened long ago. It took place over the course of three days, and at one point a cavalry unit faced a force that was larger than them by several orders of magnitude…”

Bellamy is listening with rapt attention and soon draws up a chair, eyes wide. Clarke’s finished her food by now and leaves them to it. She’s grateful that Lexa’s finally found someone who shares her love for military history, but there's only so long she can listen to the two of them geek out about it.

She goes and sits by Octavia, who’s still pouting over the lost bacon. She’s been in a generally shitty mood for the last few days, on account of Lincoln’s being away on a boar-hunting trip and not due to return until tomorrow night. She’d begged Indra to let her go but had been told – in furious Trigedasleng that Lexa had translated for her in a gleeful whisper – that she was Indra’s Second and in training and under no circumstances was she to slip off with her boyfriend to kill pigs and have sex (apparently there had been some pork-related pun in there that Clarke hadn’t understood, but it had had Lexa laughing for a day straight).

“Your girlfriend’s a dick,” Octavia says by way of greeting, taking the bacon slice that Clarke hands her as a peace offering and wolfing it down like she hasn’t just eaten half her weight in breakfast food.

“I’m aware,” Clarke says. “Heard anything more from Raven about the radios?”

“Crackling and the occasional curse, but that’s it,” the warrior says, washing down the last of her food with a healthy swig of berry juice.

Clarke sighs. “You’d think with the towers down it would be easy enough to establish communications between here and Camp Jaha.”

Octavia shrugs as she rises, slinging her sword over her back. “You’d think. But apparently Raven’s got more important things to do…or people.”

Clarke rolls her eyes but is well aware that she has very little standing to criticize Raven for that. Four weeks ago Lexa had announced her intention to train the _Amba kom Skaikru_ personally to make sure that she was well-versed in Trigedakru language, politics, weaponry, tactics, and everything else necessary to ensure that she was fully equipped to handle her new position. A week later she was forced to admit defeat: they’d spent more time in bed than out of it and had been caught by Indra so many times in various inappropriate places that she had begun refusing to enter their presence without sending Octavia in to announce her first. Octavia had borne the new arrangement with bad grace until she had realized the endless possibilities for humiliation it presented. She had once watched for five whole minutes, making snide comments about form and technique to one of the other Seconds, before Clarke and Lexa had noticed her and screamed at her to get out.

Clarke can’t help but blush at the memory, and when she can meet Octavia’s eyes again it’s pretty clear that the warrior knows exactly what she’s thinking about. “Try to make it to training at least a little bit on time?” she says as she turns to go.

“Hey, where are you going?”

“Gotta check in with Indra first,” Octavia shouts over her shoulder as she heads back up the path to the village proper. “See if there’s anything else she wants me doing.”

Given Octavia’s advanced progress compared to the rest of the Skaikru, Indra occasionally sends her on different training missions, though the general makes sure that she attends at least one of the _shiljus_ sessions per day and cuffs her soundly every time she rolls her eyes or makes some comment about how _basic_ everything is. She also seems to have an eagle eye out for anytime her Second's fudging her form or skipping a step in a drill, even when she’s halfway across the training ground correcting some foible of Clarke’s.

Because, of course, Lexa had insisted that Clarke learn how to fight too. She’d been pleased with Clarke’s ability in hand-to-hand – having trained in various forms of martial arts since age eight, she’s typically good for pinning Octavia in about half of their bouts. She’s been getting better with the bow, but she’s struggling with the sword and so hopeless with knivesthat Lexa had eventually been persuaded to give that one up. While the _shiljus_ trains in knife-fighting, she studies Trikru healing with Nyko.

This had been a request of Abby’s – knowing that the Ark medicine, while more effective than the Grounder stuff, wouldn’t last forever, she’d tasked Clarke with learning everything she could about Trikru equivalents and bringing back samples for her to experiment with. This project has been largely shelved, Clarke knows, as her mother is still struggling with the creation of a cure for the Spared – now housed in three different airlocks, with oxygen supplies holding more or less steady. It’s been slow going, but the last she’d heard from her mother she’d been excited – the Chancellor thinks she might be close to a breakthrough that could mean the ground would be survivable for the remaining Mountain Men.

This is why Clarke wishes Raven would get the radios up running sooner rather than later – she knows that the Maunon are running out of time, and it seems like every time she comes back from Tondc there are a couple less of them. A few have died of very basic illnesses that had come too fast for Abby to cure, and the last time a little boy had accidentally crawled out of an airlock without his hazmat suit fully sealed. His screams had brought everyone running, but by the time he had been hustled into the medical bay his burns were too extensive to treat. All they’d been able to do was make him as comfortable as possible, and try to console his older sister.

Clarke knows that incident had broken her mother’s heart, and that she still considers herself responsible. She wishes that she’d been able to talk to her mom, to offer her some comfort in the immediate aftermath, and she knows that that won’t be the only incident. But there’s another reason she wants the radios working, one that's looming somewhat large today, the last day of her fourth week at Tondc: Lexa.

It had surprised her how difficult those two weeks at Camp Jaha had been without Lexa to turn to, to make a snarky comment or listen quietly to Clarke’s frustrations or distract her very efficiently with sneaky hands and a skillful mouth. It concerns her a little bit just how much she finds herself missing the Commander when they're apart, but she brushes those concerns aside with the facts: it will be incredibly useful to be able to maintain an open channel of communication between the Ark and the nearest Grounder village, and if that means she gets to talk to her girlfriend on a regular basis, that’s just a plus.

 _Girlfriend_ , she thinks, looking at the Commander as she’s very seriously pushing the remains of her breakfast around the high table to plot out the great Battle of Tysburg for Bellamy, who’s eagerly following the bacon bits’ progress as they mount a charge on a hill of bread. It feels like a weird word to use for Lexa, an Ark word, one that doesn’t belong on the ground, or at least make sense there. _Girlfriend_ feels like giggling and holding hands as they run through the corridors, skipping class to steal some time alone or hurrying home from a deserted engine room just before curfew. The idea of Lexa doing any of those things seems ludicrous to her, but she can’t think of any other word that fits. Maybe she’ll ask Lexa later what her people would call them.

They haven't really discussed what they are to each other, not in a way Clarke’s familiar with – haven’t said the three most terrifying words on Earth. And yet they speak in another language – not English, not Trigedasleng, but one that only emerges when they’re alone. Not so much in words, but in touches and looks and sighs. Clarke can feel Lexa’s care in the way her hands gentle the places where she was pleasurably rough moments before, in the kisses that she presses over the marks she’s made on Clarke’s skin. Each one of these gestures both excites Clarke and settles her in a way she’s never felt before – it’s like she’s simultaneously racing through darkened woods and sitting inside by a fire on a cold evening. It’s not something she can put into words, but there’s a canvas taking shape in her mind bit by bit. She’s been meaning to ask Lexa if they’d recovered any painting materials from Mount Weather, but they’ve been so busy that she keeps forgetting.

Lexa feels eyes on her and looks up to meet Clarke, staring at her in a way that she can’t quite fathom. She gives the Sky Girl a quizzical look, but she just shakes her head, smiling like the sun out of a clear blue sky, and Lexa’s description of Tysburg’s second day of fighting stutters to a halt. She hardly notices Bellamy’s impatient glance over his shoulder to see what she’s looking at, but his annoyed sigh snaps her out of her trance. “My apologies, Bellamy…what was I talking about?”

“The Second Manass – but you weren’t so much talking as drooling towards the end there, so I kind of lost the thread a little bit.”

Lexa shoots him a dark look, but doesn’t demur. She’d been taught that it is bad grace to punish someone for merely pointing out the truth, as rudely as it was delivered, though Blake and his sister seem to delight in tempting her to break that rule. Bellamy meets her glare with a level gaze, and she decides not to push it.

“I believe we should be heading for the training ground in any case.”

Bellamy gives her a humorless smile. “Tysburg can wait.”

“It can…and perhaps it should. In my library at Polis there are many books that can do a far better job of detailing it than I.”

Bellamy’s face lights up at the prospect, and she sends him ahead of her to round up the _shiljus_ and herd them to the training ground.

“Shouldn’t you be going with him?” Clarke asks when she feels lips pressed to her neck and warm hands sliding over her shoulders.

“Mmm,” Lexa murmurs in her ear, hands moving lower. “Ryder will get them started. No one will notice if I’m late.”

“Indra will – _notice_ ,” Clarke says, cursing herself for how the word turns into a gasp.

"Let her."

Clarke is about nine tenths convinced when they hear the yell.

“No, _fuck_ you!”

Clarke's head snaps forward from where it was tipped back against Lexa’s shoulder, and Lexa’s lips detach from her throat with an audible pop. They take a moment to give one another a guilty glance before another shout rings out:

“ _Sep of, branwada!”_

"Shit," Clarke growls under her breath and shoves back from the table. She takes off up the path back to the village at a dead sprint, Lexa close on her heels.

What they find is about the worst-case scenario: a struggling scrum of Volunteers and Tondc villagers, heaving back and forth like an angry sea. It looks to Clarke like most of them are trying to pull people apart, but there are plenty who are just interested in getting in a few good shots. At the epicenter of the raging mass is a grappling pair that makes Clarke’s heart sink: Isaac Asmo and the Trikru warrior Penn, both of them young and hotheaded and currently attempting to kill one another.

Asmo’s been a problem since the beginning. His time in Mount Weather had made him fast friends with Jasper, but Monty doesn’t like him and it’s not hard for Clarke to see why. He brings out the worst in Jasper where Monty brings out the best: while Jasper in Monty’s presence is caring, considerate, and brave, in Asmo’s he’s disruptive, caustic, and sometimes even mean-spirited. But Asmo at this point doesn’t need Jasper’s authority to make trouble; after having established himself as Jasper’s left-hand man, he’s gathered a little following of his own. Clarke’s done her best to make sure that there aren’t a critical mass of his cronies coming with her to Tondc each expedition, but she can’t directly forbid anyone to come; they’re all volunteers, after all.

Apparently she didn’t do a good enough job this time, she thinks with a sinking heart as she wades into the fray, pulling idiots apart and delivering blows carefully localized to deaden arms and take out knees. When she takes a moment to look up and wipe the sweat out of her eyes, she sees that Lexa’s circled the brawlers and begun to do much the same. At least, Clarke thinks, Indra hasn’t arrived to see this mess. It would be just the thing to make the general kick the Sky People out of her village for good.

 _“Chil yo daun!”_ Indra roars.

“We’re fucked,” Clarke says cheerfully to no one in particular, only realizing when she hears a soft snort just next to her that Lexa has met her in the middle of the melee. She shoots her a sardonic glance before grabbing Asmo and wrenching his arm up behind his back, easily incapacitating him, just as Lexa does the same with Penn.

The idiots have largely stopped their idiocy, aside from a few isolated kicks and shoves, and no one really wants to meet Clarke or Lexa’s eyes as they march the two ringleaders towards where Indra’s standing flanked by Octavia, murder in her eyes. “What is the meaning of this?” she hisses as they approach. Lexa’s just about to start delivering a report when she remembers that she’s Heda and attempts to glare down her nose at Indra. After a moment the general sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose, and says, voice shaking with rage, “My apologies, Heda, but –”

“It’s your village, General,” Lexa says, kicking Penn’s knees out from under him and sending him to the ground. After a moment, Clarke follows suit. “I’ll leave these two for you to sort out. Your discipline stands.”

Clarke sees the satisfaction in Indra’s eyes and is forcibly transported back into Lexa’s tent two months ago, when she’d watched the general demand Finn’s life and all of their own as restitution for those he’d taken from her people. “The hell it does,” she says, stepping between Asmo and Indra and turning to glare at Lexa. “Indra can do what she wants to Penn, but Asmo’s Skaikru. We’ll put him in lockup and he can answer to the Chancellor when we get back to Camp Jaha.”

Lexa’s eyes have gone dark and cold in a way that Clarke hasn’t seen in months. “He may be Skaikru but you’re in a Trikru village,” she says in a low voice. “I am Commander of the Trikru; my word is law.”

Clarke knows that it wasn’t the best idea to buck Lexa’s authority in public, but she’ll be damned if she lets her get away with pulling rank on her either. “Well, we don’t have to be here, _Commander_ ,” she says, just as low, just as deadly. “I can take my people and go at any time, unless you choose to detain us.”

All at once the clear autumn air is gone; heat crackles in the space between them. Lexa’s eyes narrow, boring into Clarke’s, but the Sky Girl's not giving any ground. Lexa clenches her fists against the urge to lash out at someone, anyone. But she’s Heda, and she needs to act like it. She just wishes Clarke weren’t making it so _hard._

“That will not be necessary,” she says as calmly as she can, drawing herself out of the fighting stance she’s unconsciously adopted and lifting her chin. “Your people will be returning to Camp Jaha tomorrow. However, if you refuse to accept our rule of law you will need to be confined. _All_ of you.”

There’s a feeling in the pit of her stomach like she’s stepped on uncertain ground, but she can’t imagine what it is. This is who she is, what she does; she’s Heda, and whatever Clarke may mean to her she can never forget that.

She expects Clarke to yell and push her and storm off. Clarke’s anger is usually hot and sudden, there and gone again as swiftly as a summer storm. But now her voice is cold, the only hint of her rage the bite of her inflections, like flashes of heat lightning on a breathless night. “Fine,” she says. “Just tell us where you want us, and we’ll go. Just to be clear: tomorrow we will be allowed to return to Camp Jaha, right?”

“Correct,” Lexa bites off, trying not to be taken aback and failing. “You’re not prisoners, Clarke, but –”

 _“Ambassador_ ,” Clarke growls, and Lexa’s feeling of the ground shifting under her feet intensifies.

“Ambassador,” Lexa repeats, and then turns to Indra to hide the tumult going in her eyes. “General, where do you have that can hold all of the Skaikru?”

“Nowhere that they can all be restrained, Heda,” Indra says stiffly, her eyes flickering between Clarke and Lexa. Lexa wills her own not to follow them.

“They’re not prisoners,” Lexa says again, letting a bit of her anger show in her voice, knowing that Indra won’t fault her for it. “They don’t need to be restrained, just…kept.”

“The meeting hall should be sufficient,” Indra says.

“Good. Take the Skaikru there.”

Before Indra can issue any orders, Clarke barks for her people to follow her and begins making her way to the underground hall, one of the few buildings left more or less intact after the missile. Lexa’s teeth grind as she watches them go, then notices the Skaikru warriors of the _shiljus_ standing aimlessly. Many of them are darting glances at Bellamy, who’s watching Clarke’s retreating back with a furrowed brow. Something clicks into place in Lexa’s mind, but she knows it’s not time yet for that mechanism to be set in motion.

“Bellamy.”

The Sky boy jerks his head towards her. “Commander. Should we be going with her?”

Lexa considers. She’s trying to meld the _shiljus_ into one seamless unit, but they’re not there yet. Keeping them from their people will only cause more tension among those who need it least. “Go,” she says at last. “Keep an eye on her – on everyone. Keep them from causing any more trouble, and bear witness to make sure that the instigators of the fight are punished.”

Bellamy nods and the Skaikru element of the _shiljus_ follows him towards the doorway. The rest turn to head back towards the training ground, led by Ryder, but Lexa calls over Kyro and Rana, a younger warrior from a nearby village who’s become close friends with Octavia and Monroe. _“You go with them too,”_ she says, low, in Trigedasleng. _“Keep an eye out for trouble at the Camp. If you think anything’s likely to happen, one of you get back here and report to me. The other one can stay to excuse their absence.”_

 _“Sha, Heda,_ ” Kyro and Rana say immediately and turn to follow her orders, but Lexa can see the worry and confusion in their eyes that she’s been hard at work keeping from hers. It’s far too reminiscent of the old days, when her people and the Skaikru had barely been allies, the truce fresh between them and bad blood still seeping from fresh wounds. Much progress has been made in healing the animosity that’s lain between them, but tension has remained, and it’s felt for some time now like there was an incident like this one brewing just under the surface of their collaboration. And then there’s Clarke.

Lexa sighs and runs her hand through her hair roughly in frustration. If she’d been thinking straight no one would even know they were more to one another than close partners and allies, but while she can curse herself all she likes for her indiscretions that won’t put the ringcat back in the tree. She knows she needs to deal with Clarke, but – not now. She follows her _shiljus_ down the path to the training ground, knowing that Clarke’s fury will only grow with each step she takes away from explaining herself, but right now she just needs to plug a target full of throwing knives until her head stops hurting so much.

Clarke waits at the door of the meeting hall as the Arkers descend into its darkness; she's joined by Indra, whom she refuses to look at. Neither of them speaks until Octavia tries to go through, but is stopped by her mentor. “No. You’re my Second; you stay with us.”

“She’s from the Ark,” Clarke snarls.

“And she’s in training with me, which I won’t have disrupted for a full two weeks!”

Clarke is so ready to _go,_ even though it’s with Indra who could probably demolish her with her pinky, but Octavia puts a hand on her arm and shakes her head. “Not this one, Clarke, okay? I’m too far along in my training to stop now. And besides, you need someone to keep an eye on the radio in case Raven ever gets the damn thing going, right?”

She grins, and Clarke can’t help but return it. “Fine. Take care of yourself, okay? And say hi to Lincoln for me.”

“I will.” She steps back to stand behind her First just as the last Sky Person – Bellamy – heads down the steps, and then two of the Trikru warriors from the _shiljus –_ Kyro and Rana – try to follow.

 _“Hod op_ ,” Clarke says, stepping in front of them. “What are you guys doing?” 

They both look taken aback, as though they hadn’t considered that Clarke might ask them that, but when Kyro starts shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably Rana rolls her eyes at him and says, “The Commander asked us to join you. We’re to keep you safe and make sure nobody else starts something stupid.”

Clarke glares in the direction that Lexa went, but she knows that they’re on the knife’s edge of another incident and she’s not going to start this one. “Fine. But _I_ discipline _my own people_ , got it?” she says with a sharp glance at Indra, who glares.

 _“Sha, Amba,”_ they both say, nodding, and she steps aside to let them pass.

Now it’s just her and the general. They glare at each other for a moment and Clarke is reminded again of Indra in the meeting hall, demanding all of their lives for Raven’s perceived treachery. She’d been more than happy to slaughter them all, and while she’s achieved respect and even affection for Octavia and been forced to grudgingly admit that the Skaikru are a useful ally, she’s not yet been able to let go of her distrust of the outsiders. _She’s lost too much_ , a voice in Clarke’s head says quietly, and she swallows and ducks her head. Indra very briefly betrays surprise before her cold mask snaps back down over her features, but her voice is slightly warmer.

“I’m going to lock you in, Sky Girl,” she says. “Afternoon and evening meals will be brought to you. If you need anything, tell Kyro or Rana.” Clarke turns to go, but stops at Indra’s hand on her arm. The general's look is hard, but not as hard as it might have been. “Penn will be punished for his role in this, you have my word on that.” Clarke nods and heads down the steps, the sound of the door slamming shut ringing in her ears.

She spends the next hour or so getting stories from everyone involved in the melee, which is pretty much all of the Volunteers in some capacity. It turns out that Asmo and his sidekick Beans had isolated Penn beforehand as a hothead and judged him most likely to rise to offered bait. Beans had tripped Asmo, sending him sprawling into a pile of pig shit; when Penn had turned on Beans in fury, Asmo had stepped in and started taunting him and posturing, which had in turn become pushing and shoving. In a space as tight as the work site you couldn’t just shove one person, so pretty much everyone else in the vicinity had gotten involved almost immediately. Asmo and Beans have stubbornly refused to answer any questions and asserted their Charter rights to the Chancellor’s justice. Clarke refrains from saying that they’ll probably fare better under her justice than her mother’s – she’s 110% done with these two, and privately hopes they get shocklashed. Given the mood her mother’s been in lately, it seems like a distinct possibility.

After enough voices have corroborated the story, she orders Bellamy and Monroe to tie Beans and Asmo to chairs and then retreats to a bench in the corner, her dark look more than enough to frighten off anyone hoping to speak with her. The rest of the morning passes in a haze of brooding and boredom, broken only by the door opening to reveal several villagers with platters of lunch. From what she can hear of the conversation, they’re pissed at Penn, Asmo, and Beans but by and large upset that the Skaikru are going to miss their last day of work before they return to Camp Jaha. Clarke snorts. At least that’s progress from demanding that they all be publicly tortured to death.

By the time the sun has started filtering out of the western window high in the vault, Clarke is ready to start climbing the walls. She’s snapped at Bellamy, growled at Harper, and nearly started a screaming match with Monroe before Bellamy bodily hauled the girl off. Clarke’s privately disappointed; Monroe doesn't deserve it, but at least it would have been something to do. She doesn’t expect anything more than boredom and agitation until the evening meal, but at what Clarke estimates is late afternoon the door groans open once more, letting in a choking blast of humid air. It's Ryder; his eyes rove the room until Clarke stands and makes her way to the stairs, knowing it’s her he’s after and knowing who sent him.

“The Commander wishes to speak with you in private,” Ryder says in a low voice as she nears. Clarke considers, weighing the various merits of telling Ryder that Lexa can come and speak with her herself if she wishes, she has no secrets from her people; or that Lexa can go fuck herself. But eventually she caves to her overwhelming desire to get out of the dark and dank and nods, following him through the door.

He doesn’t take her to Lexa’s tent as she expects, but down a hunting track into the forest that leads to a small open space often used as a meeting place for hunters before they embark on an expedition, or warriors before they leave for a raid. Lexa’s kicking moodily at the ashes in a firepit, and doesn’t bother to look up as they approach. _“Gon yu we,”_ she says to Ryder, and he obeys with a nod.

When she’s sure he’s gone, Lexa’s eyes snap up to meet Clarke’s. “Why must you do this?” she says, low and harsh.

“Do what?” Clarke snaps back, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Challenge me in front of my people. Force me to act with a heavy hand when if you had just _trusted_ me I would have made sure that Indra treated them fairly.”

“And what’s your version of fair?” Clarke says, stepping closer, voice low and soft like rumbles of thunder before a storm. “Only let half the village cut them to ribbons?”

Lexa’s nostrils flare and she clenches her fists as she tries to keep herself in check. “Ten lashes each, most likely; maybe twenty for the boy who started it. And Penn would be getting his own right alongside them for rising to the bait. He’s an initiated warrior; he knows better than to fight untrained brawlers.”

Clarke feels heat rising to her face and hates both Lexa and herself for it. She’s beginning to have the sinking feeling that Lexa’s right, much as she hates to admit it. She wrestles with herself for a moment trying to be an adult and handle it, but then Lexa goes and ruins it all by being smug and all of her patience and forbearance go directly out the window.

“Now,” Lexa says, the barest hint of a smirk curling at the edge of her voice, “we may still be able to salvage this. If we go back together and announce to the village that you’ve decided to accept our justice, then –”

“No fucking way,” Clarke snaps, and is momentarily gratified to see Lexa pull back, eyes wide and nostrils flaring like Gona looks when he sees a snake. Her eyes narrow a moment later and she looks almost as ferocious as she does when she’s got her warpaint on, but Clarke’s mad enough to almost be able to ignore how hot that is. “If you think I’m going back there to genuflect to you in front of Indra, you’ve got another think coming, _Commander.”_

“You’re being impossible, Clarke!” Lexa bursts out, taking a step closer, nearly shaking with rage. “This doesn’t need to happen and _wouldn’t_ be happening if you weren’t letting your bias towards your people get in the way of your reason.”

“Yeah, I am biased,” Clarke says, matching her step for step until they’re kissing-close, and again Clarke hates the ember of lust that coils to life in the pit of her stomach. They’ve had their fair share of fights – they’re both strong personalities, and used to having their commands obeyed – but they also both seem to find the sight of the other growling and fuming insanely attractive, so more times than not they conduct diplomatic negotiations rather vigorously in bed. Clarke swallows down the memories that rise to the surface of her mind and bites off, “I’m the _Amba kom Skaikru_ , Lexa. My _job_ is to be biased towards them, to fight for them and make sure they’re being treated fairly. To _protect_ them. You’d do the exact same thing if Penn started something at Camp Jaha; don’t even try to deny it.”

Lexa hates it when Clarke has a point and she hates how much she wants Clarke right now, and it's either get her out of her sight or take the Sky Girl up against a tree. “We’re done here,” she snarls, wrenching herself away, and then calls out for Ryder, who appears from around the bend in the path. “Escort the _Amba kom Skaikru_ back to her people.”

Ryder nods. “ _Sha, Heda. Amba, komba raun ai.”_

Clarke whirls and stomps past Ryder with a huff, missing the long look he gives Lexa, who snarls inarticulately and turns away to compose herself. She stays out there in the woods until close to dusk, trying breathing patterns and _hodchil_ that Anya had taught her in an attempt to quiet her mind. She returns to the village only when a wind kicks up, blowing in black thunderheads that hasten the arrival of nightfall. The breeze dies as soon as comes, leaving the night breathless and growling with thunder but void of the storm’s relief. Lexa tosses and turns in her bed that night, working very hard to convince herself that it’s due to the humidity and sudden heat and not at all to her being alone.

 

* * *

 

When the villagers of Tondc bring them their evening meal, they also bring a collection of pelts and blankets and bedrolls that the Arkers spread out on the floor of the meeting hall. As the window darkens further, the Volunteers gradually stretch themselves out as well, attempting sleep or talking quietly in small groups. Clarke’s aware of a closeness and a charge in the air and it has her sitting on a bench against the wall, eyes flicking from the door to the window and across the Volunteers in a restless circuit.

As more and more of them lapse into sleep, Clarke finds herself thinking longingly more than once of the soft tangle of furs on Lexa’s bed and just how good it would feel to say Sure, whatever, you were right, I was wrong, can we please just go to sleep now? _Not gonna happen,_ she snarls at that small, weak part of herself. When she feels Bellamy’s weight join hers on the bench and hears him murmur, “What’s not gonna happen?” she realizes she’d said it aloud.

“Nothing,” she says, not bothering to try to hide the exhaustion in her voice. That’s one thing she’s always valued about Bellamy, as much as it infuriates her: she’s pretty much an open book to him, so she doesn’t waste time trying to act cheerful when she’s not. This also means, of course, that he knows when she’s holding something back, and she has to deal with the consequences.

Mercifully, however, he doesn’t seem interested in pushing it. “You should get some sleep, Princess,” he says, and she smiles wryly at the old nickname. “Got a long walk ahead of us tomorrow. Assuming, that is, your girlfriend isn’t planning on keeping us all locked up here forever.”

“Like she could,” Clarke snorts, then sighs. “No, she wants us gone just about as much as I want to _be_ gone.” At Bellamy’s side-eye l look she hastens to clarify, “Which is a lot.” He nods, processing, and she’s chewing over how to tell him that Octavia won’t be coming with them when he asks her the question just as she finds an answer.

“I take it O’s staying here?” he says.

“Yeah, and you are too.” He’s frowning and opening his mouth to argue and she gestures to Kyro and Rana just before he can start. “Lexa’s got those two coming with us, and I want us to have eyes and ears here too. Not that Octavia can’t do that just fine on her own, but…”

“But she’s already more than half Grounder,” Bellamy says, nodding. “Sounds good to me. Just make sure you get on Raven to get the radio working. If you can find a time when Wick’s not already on her, that is.”

Clarke snorts. “I’ll make sure she doesn’t get to have sex until that radio’s done, and you _know_ how grumpy that'll make her.” They exchange dark looks, and then Clarke grins. “Besides, from what I’ve seen – which is way, _way_ too much by the way – she spends more time on _him.”_

Bellamy makes a face. “Definitely didn’t need to know that.”

With that sorted out, Clarke settles herself onto a bedroll, hoping she can get a bit of shuteye before she has to face Lexa and a very long walk the next morning. She winds up watching the sun and then the moon creep across the window and resigns herself to a very, _very_ long day.

Shortly after dawn, the door to the meeting hall clangs open and Indra stalks down the stairs, flanked by a couple of warriors. Clarke stands immediately and Bellamy rises as well, planting himself by her shoulder and folding his arms. When she sees his tightened jaw Clarke nudges him with her elbow – the last thing she needs is for him to start another confrontation, especially if he’s going to be spending the next two weeks here. She’s uncomfortably reminded of the time she sent him into the Mountain as her inside man, but forces herself to remember that these are the Trikru, _not_ the Mountain Men. Their customs are different and their ways sometimes strange but they are allies, maybe even friends. Bellamy’s smart; he’ll be all right.

Indra’s gaze sweeps across the room, pausing over the bound hands of Asmo and Beans before settling on Clarke. She gives a slow nod, which Clarke returns, and then gestures for her attendants to unlock the door. The Sky People follow the general up the stairs, blinking at the sudden blast of light before emerging into the breathlessly humid morning, already buzzing with heat. Clarke begins to sweat almost immediately and bites back a groan. This is _not_ going to be an easy march.

They’re given leave to return to their section of the camp and pack, and most of the Sky People stumble towards their tents, but Clarke hesitates. All of her things are in Lexa’s tent, and that’s about the last place she wants to go right now. But she’s not going to leave her things behind just because the Commander’s being an ass. She forces herself to remember the heat of yesterday's anger as she marches stiffly towards the tent. It’s hard, though, with how tired and heartsick she is, and the most she can manage is a sort of exhausted ache.

Lexa turns away from the flap of the tent the moment Clarke enters and pretends to interest herself in a map spread out on the war table, but when she hears Clarke scoff she knows her pretense hasn’t worked. With a sigh she forces herself to look at the Sky Girl, trying not to think about their last parting – how they’d spent nearly the entire night entwined, not wanting to look away from one another even to sleep. They’d managed a few hours but need had woken first Lexa and then Clarke, and they’d returned to mapping one another’s bodies with desperate hands and hungry mouths, falling into one another again and again until exhaustion parted them once more. Looking at Clarke now, she feels that same desperation rise again, a feverish urge to close the distance between them in the tent and apologize to Clarke with a kiss, but something won’t let her. Her pride, her position, maybe her fear – it won’t let her bend, and so when Clarke stands up from shoving her clothes into her pack and meets her eyes, she breaks and turns away.

Clarke lets out a quiet huff, like something she’d suspected had just been confirmed, and then moves to sweep past her out of the tent. Fear closes around Lexa’s throat and she moves to stop Clarke with a hand on her wrist. At the Sky Girl’s glare, she drops it like it burns her, but returns her eyes to Clarke, silently beseeching. “I’ll see you in two weeks,” she says, her inflection implying a question. 

A humorless smile quirks at Clarke’s lips. “I am the _Amba kom Skaikru_ , aren’t I?” she says, and Lexa nods. “Two weeks, then.” She leaves the tent, and for the first time since their arrangement began Lexa does not follow her to say goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigedasleng:
> 
> *means I’ve made stuff up
> 
> Hos op: Hurry up
> 
> *Tuon: Second. A warrior’s apprentice. The Grounder word for two is tu.
> 
> Fos: First (as in the warrior who is training a Second). 
> 
> *shiljus: Bloodguard. Full term is Gonakru kom shiljus (bloodguard warband). It’s a concept I will shamelessly admit to lifting from the Dothraki Bloodriders in A Song of Ice and Fire; Bloodriders are sworn to live and die by their khal’s side. If he dies, they are sworn to die as well. 
> 
> Sep of: Back off
> 
> Branwada: Grounder insult that literally means “brown water,” as in something useless or contaminated. 
> 
> Chil yo daun: Stand down (second-person plural. Yo is kind of like y’all.)
> 
> Sha: Yes
> 
> Hod op: Wait
> 
> *Amba: Ambassador. Clarke’s position among the Trikru and her people. She speaks for the Skaikru among the Trikru and the Trikru among the Skaikru.
> 
> Gon yu we: Go on, leave
> 
> Komba raun ai: come with me
> 
> *Hodchil: similar to meditation. Comes from hod, which means hold, and chil, which is part of chil daun (stand down) but I’m taking the slurred origin for this word here (chil, as in chillax or some shit lol. Whatever, don’t sue me, I’m not a linguist, just a fanboi.)


	2. Let the river in / burst the dams and start again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woah. So you guys totally blew me away with the response to the first chapter! I'm so glad you guys enjoyed it, and enjoyed Rebirthed Kings and Queens enough to keep coming back for more! I hope you like this one as much. As always, let me know your thoughts!
> 
> Notes on Trigedasleng are NOT at the end; read to the end to see why.

Days after they’ve returned from Camp Jaha, been received by her mother and debriefed by Kane, and seen the instigators punished with a full audience of the Volunteers present – ten shocklashes each, to Clarke’s disgusted satisfaction – the storms that have been growling around the mountains like circling wolves have still not come. The days are thick and hot, dreary when the clouds hang overhead and brutal when the sun is out, and the nights are breathless. Twisting and sweating in her thin sheets, Clarke finds herself longing for the open air of the village and the forest or even the sterile cool of space, anything except the sick mugginess of the Ark’s halls. The next day she manages to bully Raven into taking a blowtorch to her room and cutting out a window.

Raven’s generally unimpressed with her these days. She was never fond of the idea of Clarke and the Commander, and Clarke can see it in the mechanic’s controlled movements and careful avoidance of her eyes, even as they pretend to joke and laugh like old friends, like nothing has changed. Like Clarke hadn’t murdered the boy they both loved to save him from the girl she’s inexplicably fallen for. They don’t talk about this, but the fact that they talk about everything _but_ this means that the air’s not cleared; the storm’s still rumbling between them.

But being around Raven is definitely easier than being around her mother – things have gotten better, but they’re still tense in that quarter too, and Clarke sometimes catches her mother looking at her like she doesn’t know her, like she’s watching a wild animal for sudden moves. To cut the tension Clarke downloads all that she’s learned from Nyko on her mother, presents her with several samples of Trikru medicinal plants, and tells her about the village Nyko comes from: a place on the banks of the Sapeak River where a high volume of plants and fungus that are useful for treating ailments grow, and where a vibrant community of healers has emerged. Many villages in the surrounding area send people there to train, or promise that any healer who’s mastered the place’s teachings will have a place of honor among their people, and have their needs met in exchange for living among them as their healer. At this Abby brightens, expressing interest in studying with the experts there herself someday, but they both know that that won’t happen for some time. Not until she makes more progress on the Maunon, that is.

It’s slow going. The breakthrough the Chancellor thought she’d achieved turned out to be a bust, and it feels as though she’s nearly back at square one. Plus elections have been held for new Council members, and her attention is diverted to training them in their duties and preparing for the next election, which will be for her own position. As far as Clarke knows Abby will be running unopposed, but that doesn’t mean her mother feels she can go into it unprepared.

Clarke provides some relief in the form of distracting the Council members, who crowd around her, clamoring with questions about the Grounders and their lifestyle and ways, and she’s happy to give her mother a few opportunities to slip away and return to her work in the lab. But after a while, when the questions don’t stop coming, she begins to resent that Abby’s using her as a shield, and starts avoiding the Counselors herself. It’s not hard – even two weeks of stealth training has paid off, and she’s finding herself keenly aware of the difference between how Sky People move and how Grounders do – heavy boots thudding on solid metal, versus soft feet padding on dirt. She knows she’d never be able to sneak up on a trained Trikru warrior – not as she is right now, anyhow – but she’s got more than enough skill to avoid soft, unwary middle-aged politicians.

While she’s found several hiding spots of varying reliability – forcibly reminding her of the stories Lexa’s told her about her own adventures in this area, trying to find places where she could avoid Anya or be alone with Costia – the one she keeps coming back to is Raven’s workshop. Most people avoid it – either because of the noisy machinery that she somehow always seems to be working with whenever someone she doesn’t want to talk to arrives, or the noisy sex she always seems to be having with Wick when someone she _really_ doesn’t want to deal with comes in. After the first few times she walked in on them Clarke had considered taking the hint, but decided to take a page out of Octavia’s book instead and simply sat down at a bench and started fiddling with one of their projects, until the noises gradually died away and Raven had hobbled over to snatch it out of her hands. “Break that and I’ll break your face.”

Clarke had merely nodded and said, “Made any more progress on that radio?” Her only response had been an inarticulate growl from Raven, who had stalked off to find her pants.

The first week passes more or less the same and Clarke finds herself slipping into the way she always seems to feel at Camp Jaha: edgy, itching towards the forest, and somewhat lonely despite the higher concentration of people around her and the gladness of her friends to see her. She doesn’t _mean_ to be pulling away from them, but she can’t help it – their exuberance, their lust for life, the way they wake up every day expecting it to be better than the next and expecting _her_ to help facilitate this – all of these things exhaust her.

Clarke’s idly twisting her hair into braids and considering where best to brood today when Raven bursts into her room unannounced. That’s a habit that’ll need to be broken should the mechanic ever come to Tondc, Clarke thinks, before remembering that she shouldn’t be thinking about _that_ with Tondc’s biggest asshole _at all_. “I’m a genius!”

“Good morning to you too, sunshine,” Clarke says, tying off the end of the last braid.

Raven rolls her eyes. “Jesus, Griffin, learn to handle withdrawal. Even O’s not this bad.”

“I’m not _withdrawing_ from anything!” Clarke snaps, before realizing from Raven’s grin that she’s trying to get a rise out of Clarke. “Fine, why are you a genius this time?”

In answer, Raven grabs her hand and tugs her off her bed and out of the room, into the corridor, ignoring her protests of hunger and anger and curiosity all the way to the workshop, where Wick is hunched and grinning like a proud papa over a hissing, crackling, _working_ radio. “Say hi to Clarke, Octavia!”

 _“Hi to Clarke, Octavia!”_ Clarke rolls her eyes and growls, “It is way too early in the morning for this level of exuberance. Wick, you better have coffee or I’m gonna commit mass murder.”

“Easy there, no call for that,” Wick says, sliding a steaming mug of brown sludge from his and Raven’s rebuilt coffee machine across the desk. She hunches over it, breathing in the fumes gratefully, and only growls in the radio’s general direction when Octavia says, _“Dang, Blondie’s got it bad, huh?”_

“Worst I’ve seen it,” Raven says conversationally, and the only thing that restrains Clarke from throwing her coffee at her is how long the machine takes to brew.

_"Hey Griffin, you want me to put your girlfriend on the line?”_

“No _,”_ Clarke snarls and finishes her mug in one gulp, heedless of the burn down the back of her throat, before marching out of the room. The last thing she hears is Octavia crackling, _“Ah, shit, I forgot they were having a fight.”_

Yes, fine, she’s frustrated – everything’s frustrating right now, how could she not be? Her friends, her mother, her entire situation – and her main method of working out that frustration happens to be thirty kilometers away and a complete asshole, one that she’s not speaking to right now.

She heads outside to get some fresh air, but there’s precious little of that. The heat and black clouds have only grown heavier; it feels like the air has literally gone breathless. She remembers Lexa saying something about the rainy season, how it had been unexpectedly mild and they had better hope it stayed that way, but at least Camp Jaha stood on high ground. She had also mentioned something about the Sapeak River, a large body flowing not far from Tondc, but to be honest Clarke had been more interested in tracing the lines of Lexa’s tattoos across her shoulders and down her side than listening, and Lexa had been fairly easy to distract. 

She marches through the gates –the guard sergeant on duty salutes her, and she acknowledges him with a nod – and makes her way towards the forest. There are a few people working in the meadow on cleared plots of land, the flattest ones they could prepare with seeds gifted to them by the people of Tondc. Abby intends them to become fully fledged farms but at this point they’re more like garden plots, and will likely remain that way until the next planting season, when the Sky People can manage to level more of the rolling terrain. They’re more of an experiment than anything, a test to see if the Skaikru will be able to survive the coming winter. It’s not something that Clarke can really conceptualize right now, what with the never-ending summer heat.

The sky growls and she growls back at it, pushing her way into the forest. It’s dark and close in here but at least she feels like she can breathe, in a way that had felt impossible in the dark warrens of the Ark or the damp chill of the meeting hall. She’d told Lexa about the feeling once, not too long ago, and Lexa had nodded, understanding completely. “There are times the world starts to seem like a cage, and I feel like I have to just break out. So I go into the trees and run until I feel like I’m where I’m supposed to be again.”

“How long does that usually take?” Clarke had asked, and Lexa had shrugged.

“As long as it takes. I went for ten miles once. Got very lost and spent the night shivering in a tree while a bearcat prowled below, trying to find a way up. Gustus found me in the morning and scared it off, and then he had to climb up and haul me down because my legs were cramping too badly to move.”

Clarke considers giving Lexa’s method a try for about half a second before she remembers that she hates running and Lexa’s a dick. All at once the peace of the trees dissipates, and she storms out of the forest in a huff. She’s made it approximately two steps out of the woods when lightning sears across the sky, thunder crackles just a moment later, and then a torrent that feels more like a waterfall than a rainstorm sends her screaming across the field towards the Ark.

She’s swearing and shivering and toweling herself dry a few minutes later, after Raven’s had a good long laugh at how much she looks like a drowned rat. She can’t help but remember the first time she’d experienced a thunderstorm like this – maybe two days after her mother had left Tondc for the first time. She’d stepped out into the rain and stood there, entranced at the feeling of it rocketing down from the sky and pattering on her skin, breathing in the smell, catching droplets of it on her tongue. She’d known about rain on the Ark, of course; her science teachers had pointed out when there was a rainstorm going on down on Earth, and books and old movies had described the way it had looked, but just as with so many other things about Earth there was nothing that could have truly prepared her.

She’d thought she could have stood out there for a solid hour but Lexa had looked up at that moment from where she was painting more miniatures for her war table – they’d gotten rather energetic the night before and destroyed a bunker and half a forest as a result. When she realized that Clarke wasn’t there she’d come charging out of the tent and attempted to drag Clarke back into it. When she’d had resisted, Lexa had dropped her arm and given her a look of disbelief. “Are you insane? You’ll get sick if you stay out here long and there are much better methods of washing your clothes if you want them clean.”

Clarke had stuck her tongue out at Lexa and laughed when her eyes narrowed. “C’mon, just give me a minute. It’s my first time out in a storm like this.”

“Stay out too long and it’ll be your last time,” Lexa had muttered, but she hadn’t made any further attempts to bring Clarke in. In a few minutes, however, Clarke was soaked to the skin and forced to admit that Lexa might have a point. She headed back into the tent and Lexa followed her, moving to stoke the fire as Clarke dripped and shivered. To her credit, she managed to keep most of the smugness out of her voice when she turned to Clarke and said, “You should get out of those clothes, Clarke, they’ll keep you cold far longer.”

Clarke hadn’t missed the slight lowering of Lexa’s voice and the darkening of her eyes, and it only intensified as she stepped closer. “Well then, Commander, how about you warm me up?”

Lexa had been happy to oblige.

Clarke growls at her traitorous brain as she yanks off her soaked clothing and shoves on an old pair of ratty sweatpants and a tattered shirt. She’s supposed to be _mad_ at Lexa, for fuck’s sake, not thinking wistfully about how warm she’d been and how the rain sounded pattering on the roof of the tent as they spent the afternoon entwined. But the drumming of the water on the chilled steel of the Ark and the way the hard droplets spatter to the ground is not nearly as comforting, and she can’t help it.

The rain lasts for the rest of the day, and then another. Raven swears she saw it taper off for about fifteen minutes at two one morning, but since nobody else was awake except Wick and he had been busy (Clarke begs her at this point not to elaborate) no one could corroborate her story. It just rains, so much that Clarke thinks she might forget soon what the sun looked like, and the blue sky. Everyone’s been spending too much time indoors in the cramped, close quarters of the Ark and they’re getting sweaty and musty and snappish. Clarke has a blowout with Abby that causes Raven to issue strict orders to the _shiljus_ to keep them away from each other, but she spends half the time fighting with Wick so Clarke doesn’t think she has much standing to complain.

They’re three days into the monsoon when the radio crackles to life with Octavia’s voice. She’s been alternating daily check-ins with Bellamy, getting on the horn with Clarke or Raven at 9 sharp, though they’ve been shorter lately than usual due to the crappiness of the signal, which Raven blames on the rain.

Clarke's on radio duty while Raven sleeps on the cot in the corner, but they both jerk to attention when they hear the edge in Octavia’s voice. _“Tondc to Camp Jaha, come in? Tondc to –”_

“We’re here, Octavia, what’s going on?” Clarke says, brow furrowed.

 _“Oh thank god. Okay, so the Sapeak River’s been rising for days and Lexa’s been trying to convince the people in Esse – that’s Nyko’s village – to evacuate, but they say they won’t because they have patients that they can’t leave. But now it’s looking like it’s going to flood and the elder has finally agreed to go, but they have so many injured or sick people that they’re not going to be able to get out of there before it floods. So Lexa’s taking a_ gonakru _to help them evacuate. But we don’t know – we might not be able to make it in time, I’ve been down there and it looks really bad, and –”_

“Do you need our help?” Clarke says as Raven joins her at the table.

_“I don’t know. I don’t think so – not yet, anyway. Just – keep somebody on the radio, okay? Just in case.”_

“Will do, O. And – be careful, okay?” Clarke hesitates for a moment, chewing her lip, and then says, “All of you.”

 _“We will,”_ Octavia says, and Clarke thinks she understands. _“We’re about to ride out now but Bellamy’s staying behind with the rest to keep an eye on the village; he’ll give you any updates we get. Over and out.”_

“Over and out,” Clarke says, and the radio clicks off. She runs an agitated hand through her hair. _Well, fuck._ Because she definitely needed another thing to worry about.

“Somebody should probably tell your mom,” Raven croaks, looking pointedly at Clarke, but Clarke doesn’t have the energy to snap at her. She just lurches out of her chair and heads down the corridors in search of Abby.

To Clarke’s surprise, Abby makes the suggestion that an announcement be made about the conditions down near the river, and volunteers be asked to prepare to mobilize should their help be needed. Kane and the rest of the Council address the Ark over the loudspeaker, and when Clarke heads to Storage Bay 14 to meet the people who are interested in helping, the sheer number of them makes her have to turn away and bite her lip. They gather supplies they think might be handy for this kind of thing, and then work to clean up a second medical bay for anyone who might need to be taken back to Camp Jaha for Ark medicine. Abby initially questions the necessity of splitting her healers’ attention like this, but Clarke explains that the Grounders view illness and injury as weakness and the more privacy they have, the more cooperative they’ll be.

As she’s heading to dinner from her work on the bay, she overhears hushed voices in an adjoining corridor. Ordinarily this wouldn’t attract much attention, but she can tell that they’re speaking Trigedasleng. She drops back from where she’d been walking with Monty and Harper, promising that she’ll meet them in the mess hall, and goes to listen. There’s only two people it could be, after all – Kyro and Rana. While some of the Volunteers have made reasonable progress in learning the Grounders’ language, none of them have the ability to speak it as fluently as these two.

To Clarke’s surprise, she’s able to pick out enough of their conversation that she can largely understand, and she can glean the words she doesn’t understand from the context. _“We have our orders,”_ Rana’s saying in Trigedasleng, her voice low and tight. Clarke peers around the corner and can see that her jaw is hard and set, her arms crossed over her chest, her feet planted.

Kyro, however, is leaning forward, hands clenched into fists, eyes wild. He says something that Clarke doesn’t understand, but from the way he says it suspects it’s probably profanity. _“I don’t give_ branwada _for orders,”_ he growls. _“Lyse is there and you know how the floods can be, even without this much rain! How can you be so calm,_ sis? _You only just recently_ teina kom em. _How can you even think about the possibility of losing her?_ ”

 _“Because I trust her,”_ Rana says, sounding a bit less calm now despite her words. _“She’s just made squad leader and that’s for a reason. She’s strong, she’s smart, and she knows what she’s doing. And don’t think for a moment,_ bro, _that I wouldn’t be there in six hours if Heda_ _had not commanded us to be here. But she did, and all we can do is trust in Lyse, and trust Heda. And those two I trust most of all.”_

At this point Clarke backs away, swallowing. She doesn’t know the entirety of Rana and Kyro’s relationship to one another, or to Lyse who must be with Lexa fighting the floods, but it brings into stark reality just how much all of them stand to lose if the river can’t be tamed.

Over the next few days, Clarke and Raven spend most of their time in the mech station, pretending to work while they dart glances at the radio. Bellamy updates them usually twice, maybe three times a day, and they can tell that he’s trying to keep things cheerful for them but he’s getting worried too. Clarke’s begun to hate the sound of the rain drumming on the roof, the crackle of static that tells her Bellamy’s picking up the radio, the steady ticking of Raven’s tools as she tinkers on one trivial project or another. Wick’s been keeping his distance ever since he’d walked in on Clarke and Raven bickering and cracked a joke to try and break it up; they’d both rounded on him and bawled him out so roundly that he turned and left the room.

Clarke’s about to snap at Raven that if she doesn’t stop making that noise with that wrench she’ll break it off over her head, but she’s interrupted by the noise of the radio fizzing to life. Clarke feels dread coiling in the pit of her stomach as she rushes over the workbench where it sits, followed closely by Raven. Bellamy’s already checked in this morning; he’s not due until evening at the earliest, and sometimes later when he’s been put on post duty.

_“Tondc to Camp Jaha, over. Tondc to Camp – come on, you guys, I know you’re there, you gotta pick up, this is important!”_

“We’re here, Bellamy, what’s wrong?” Clarke says, snapping on the mic.

 _“It’s gotten bad in Esse, real bad. O just came back into camp half drowned and said that Lexa needs every able-bodied person there to fight the floods. So we’re all going. But Clarke… Octavia says it’s really,_ really _bad. If you can get anybody from Camp Jaha to come help, we need you yesterday.”_

“We’ll be there,” Clarke promises, then turns to Raven. “Tell my mom to get on the PA and get everybody mobilized.” The mechanic nods and heads off, pausing only to buckle on her brace; her lack of a snarky reply tells Clarke she’s just as worried.

“We’ll be there,” Clarke says again, forcing down the panic that’s threatening to swamp her system. “But Bellamy? Be careful. Watch out for yourself, and O, and…” She can’t bring herself to say it, but Bellamy knows.

_“I will, Clarke. I’ll look out for her too.”_

“Thanks,” Clarke says around the sudden tightness in her throat. “May we meet again.”

_“May we meet again.”_

Within an hour what seems like half of Camp Jaha is lined up at the gate, packs full of ropes and rain gear and supplies. Abby’s there waiting for Clarke as she makes her way to the gate, along with Kane and the two grounders. Kyro and Rana will be serving as their guides, and they’re pacing anxiously, fingering their weapons like this is something that can be fought. Clarke understands – she’d had to force herself not to strap on her gun and knife this morning, not wanting them to be washed away in the flood.

“We ready?” she asks the little group at the front, and Abby nods.

“Let’s go.”

It’s usually a ten-hour trek to Esse, but with Kyro and Rana setting a brutal pace they make it in eight. They’re met path from the main road to the village by Bellamy, who looks haggard and drenched and exhausted as he directs the Grounders' relief efforts.

“Thank god. We’re mostly done getting the people out but there are some who aren’t going to make it if they don’t get Ark care.”

His eyes flick to Abby, who’s already nodding. “Take Jackson to where you have them and get them on stretchers and heading back to Camp Jaha.”

Bellamy nods but doesn’t go just yet. “There’s one more thing. There’s a dam that they use to get water power but we’re worried about it bursting, and there’s a whole house full of elders nearby. We’re trying to get them out but that’s about the worst of the flooding, and –”

“I’ll go,” Clarke says, and signals Kyro, Rana, Jasper, and Monroe to join her. “Where is it?”

“Just down the path, turn right and head for the tall brick building,” Bellamy says. He has to shout to finish over the roaring of the water because Clarke’s already making her way there at a trot.

The river has risen to their calves in most places, but as they near the swollen banks it gets higher and higher, swirling around their thighs and making them have to fight to keep moving. It’s moving fast, too, and as they progress further into the village they have to dodge flotsam and jetsam that it’s stealing out of houses: chairs, boxes, once even a whole table that clips Jasper as it goes past and nearly makes him fall into the current. Rana catches his arm at the last moment and he’s able to keep his feet, looking at her gratefully.

By the time they’ve reached the brick building that Bellamy had spoken of, the water’s nearly around their waists and they’re exhausted with having to forge their way through the current. Clarke can’t even imagine how Tondc’s warriors have been managing to fight this for the last three days; suddenly battle seems almost easy. The river’s an implacable enemy, ceaseless and untiring, ready at any moment to sweep everything away. It can’t be hurt or killed or scared off; it always just is what it is, and right now it’s raging and ruthless. Clarke’s given up trying not to look for Lexa around every corner, but she has yet to catch sight of the Commander. It sets dread bubbling in her stomach but she tells herself that if anything had happened to Lexa, Bellamy would have told her.

They reach the house Bellamy had spoken of soon enough, a large and crumbling brick building rising taller than most Clarke’s seen on the ground. Kyro and Jasper help her break down the door, and Monroe and Rana catch them as a surge of water tries to sweep them off their feet. Then they push their way into the house.

Everything’s an unending nightmare of water and force and struggle after that, as Clarke and her group make their way through the house methodically, breaking down doors and hauling people off of beds and boxes and tables where they’re cowering, trying to keep their heads above the floods. Some of them are recalcitrant and don’t want to go; Clarke leaves them, figuring that the floods will convince them soon enough and she’ll have enough trouble trying to save the ones that want to be saved. Others they’re too late for and Clarke has to push back the scream that wants to erupt from her throat when they break into a large room after slamming at the door repeatedly and find only bodies, floating lifeless in the water.

But after an indeterminate amount of time – she’s lost all track, there’s only the roaring of the water and the pounding of the rain and the yells of the people she’s trying to save – they reach the top of the building and find themselves in an empty storeroom, panting and dripping and exhausted. There’s a window there, blown open by the raging wind, and while Clarke’s too tired to care about the view Jasper steps over and looks out.

“Holy shit!”

His shout draws everyone to the window. Just below is the river, rising swollen and furious over the banks that have been set to curb it, and coursing furiously over a broken dam. A group of people are struggling to put planks in place to bolster it and tame the torrent, but they can scarcely get close enough before one or more is bowled over and barely escapes being swept away. Clarke can make out Indra, Ryder, and Octavia, and the set of exhaustion in their shoulders as they prepare themselves for another attempt.

A voice rings out, halting them, and a huge white horse comes into view, neck straining as he presses forward against the current. It’s the Commander, of course, on Gona. He’s clearly struggling but he’s making better headway than the humans, and Clarke sees his rider gesturing emphatically for them to come forward. Clarke watches as Indra and Octavia tie planks to his saddle, and then Lexa sets her heels into him and they begin to force their way through the wildest part of the river towards the dam. The others, freed of their burdens, follow more easily in their wake.

When they’ve reached the dam, Lexa dismounts – Clarke’s heart rises into her throat when she staggers as she hits the river bottom, but she manages to keep her feet – just barely – by gripping onto Gona’s saddlehorn at the last second. Together with Indra, Octavia, and Ryder they begin to wrestle the planks into position, the water fighting them for every step.

It happens so fast Clarke nearly misses it – there’s a brief flash of movement as one of the planks slips out of Ryder’s hands, and then a cry as it clips Lexa in the forehead before falling back into the water and swirling away with the tide. The Commander falls backwards in what feels to Clarke like slow motion before disappearing below the swirling surface of the water. Clarke can’t breathe, like there’s water filling her own lungs, like she’s drowning too.

Lexa resurfaces but she’s not moving, her face pale against the river’s dark rush, and she’s going downstream at an insane speed. Clarke has no idea where the river leads but at this rate it could carry her miles downstream before they stop, and if she’s unconscious… She turns to bolt down the stairs, like she’ll ever arrive in time, like there’s anything she could even do to save Lexa when she can barely swim herself. She’s halfway down the stairs when Monroe yells, “She’s got her!” She dashes back up to the window and pushes Jasper roughly out of the way.

Lexa is swirling with the current, bobbing at the end of Octavia’s outstretched hand. It’s clear that the Sky warrior is struggling to keep her feet, but Indra and Ryder have managed to wrestle the final plank into place and come half-running, half-swimming to her aid. Indra grabs Lexa’s other hand and Ryder circles around to get her around the waist and drag her roughly to higher ground.

Now that the dam is back in place the water’s flow is slowed, and the river slowly recedes back into the confines of its banks. The group below fights their way through the rapids and into the remains of what was probably a storeroom. Ryder slings Lexa onto a table and she’s so still, why won’t she move, dammit she needs to _move!_ Clarke is thundering down the stairs before the others can urge caution or try to stop her, but there isn’t anything they could do anyway. She feels like the monsoon is in her brain, in her heart, and all she can see is Lexa, soaked, pale, unmoving.

When she arrives Octavia has shouldered Ryder aside and is trying chest compressions, but she backs off immediately when she sees Clarke. “Turn her head,” she barks at Ryder, who complies instantly, and she takes over. The river’s roaring and the wind’s howling have diminished in her ears; all she can hear are her own hoarse pants as she pushes on Lexa’s chest, and her own voice muttering a low, frantic mantra of “ _Move,_ dammit, breathe, come on, wake up, dammit Lexa, come _on! Yu gonplei_ nou _ste odon!”_

Lexa lurches onto her side and water pours out of her; she coughs and there’s more and it feels like it’ll never stop, like she’s going to vomit up an entire sea. But then it does and she flops onto her back, her throat feeling raw and flayed, but there’s air moving in her lungs and rain pattering down onto her face, and she’s alive. When she’d slipped beneath the river’s surface the world had faded rapidly into swirling water and darkness, and she’d only had time to think that she wasn’t going to have a chance to tell Clarke goodbye in this life. She’d hoped her spirit would find Clarke’s again soon.

But here she is, blinking up at Clarke through eyes blurred with rain and exhaustion, and the sight of her Sky Girl, soaked to the skin with her hair plastered to her face and panting harshly, is the best thing she can ever remember seeing. “Clarke,” she croaks, reaching shakily for her hand, and the Sky Girl takes it and leans her forehead against Lexa’s, hoarse sobs tearing from her throat. A couple of tears might have joined the rain on Lexa’s face, but she can’t be sure.

“We need to get to safety,” Indra says almost gently, laying a hand on Clarke’s arm, and she nods.

“If we can get the legs off we can use this as a stretcher,” she says, gesturing to the table on which Lexa’s lying, and Ryder unslings an axe from his back. The rest of the Volunteers have arrived at this point and at Clarke’s order they each take a grip on the table. Ryder swings his axe and carefully takes each leg out near its base, and then takes the lead as they slowly make their way back up the path through the village, towards higher ground. Clarke stays at Lexa’s head, holding her hand and murmuring _Not long now, just a bit further, stay with me, come on._ Lexa hears and struggles to keep her eyes open, to hold Clarke’s gaze as long as she can. She feels awful about the frantic worry in the Sky Girl’s eyes and she wants to reassure her, but her Gonasleng has deserted her and all she can manage to slur out is _“Nou get yu daun hashta ai, Klark_. _”_

“I’m not sure whether that was Trigedasleng or gibberish,” Clarke says, laughing shakily, “but don’t try to talk right now, okay? You suck at it.”

Lexa tries and fails spectacularly to glare at her and now Clarke really does laugh, and then they’ve reached the path back to the main road and Abby’s taken command, performing swift and effective triage as she rushes to put in IVs, stabilize patients, and get the worst of them on their way to Camp Jaha. She takes one look at Lexa and barks for Jackson to get a stretcher and bandages because her head is pouring blood. She dispatches Jasper, Monroe, and Octavia to various other tasks and then turns to her daughter. Clarke tenses, expecting her mother to try to send her off too, but Abby just says, “What happened to her?”

“Glancing impact to the forehead and the cut’s shallow but bleeding fast, and then she went under for a little over a minute. Water in her lungs but we got the worst of it out and she’s been breathing decently well,” Clarke rattles off, going into doctor mode at Abby’s brisk tone. Lexa gives up trying to understand what they’re saying and lets her head fall back onto the table, focusing her energy on pushing breath into and out of her exhausted, waterlogged lungs.

“We’ll want to get her back to the Ark,” Abby says, at which Clarke’s eyes go wide. “What? She could catch pneumonia or worse with what she went through and we’ll want to get her on a course of antibiotics right away.”

Clarke decides to forgo asking if she really honest-to-god means for _Lexa_ to go to Camp Jaha, and says, “Plus she probably hasn’t slept since the flood started so her immune system’s gone to shit. Am I right?”

She looks down for the answering glare but Lexa’s eyes are closed. Panic closes its jaws around her neck – after all of this, to lose her _now_ – but then she sees the hitching rise and fall of her chest and she can breathe again. “I should…see if there are any other patients who need my help,” she says slowly, still staring down at Lexa and wondering if she ever looked this vulnerable, this young, wondering how this could be the same Commander who wears blood and warpaint as she leads armies to victory, wondering if this could be the same girl who bears the burdens of leadership so her people don’t have to.

“Stay with her,” Abby says. “We have more than enough healers from the village and Nyko just brought a bunch more he rounded up from the surrounding area. Keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid like try to walk.”

“Thank you,” Clarke says gratefully, closing her hand over Lexa’s motionless fist. It’s cold and clammy to the touch, and she knows she should probably get her a blanket, though more than anything they need to get her out of the rain.

The return to Camp Jaha doesn’t take much longer than the trip to Esse, but to Clarke it feels endless, especially after the sun goes down. The world becomes a haze of water and exhaustion and all she can do is focus on is taking the next step, and the next, and keeping her ears pricked for the sound of Lexa’s ragged breathing. It’s probably two in the morning by the time the lights of the camp come into view, and she hears her mother shouting hoarsely for the gates to be opened. “We’re almost here,” she whispers to Lexa, who’s still unconscious, and squeezes her hand. She’s alarmed at how cold it is, and how it lightly shakes. “Hang on just a little bit longer for me, okay?”

Clarke’s determined not to exercise any privilege to get Lexa better or faster treatment, but she doesn’t think it’s an accident that the Commander winds up in a bed in a private room while there are others still waiting for berths in the main ward. But Clarke’s not in any state of mind to challenge it, even if she wanted to; when she’s helped the Grounder healers whom Nyko’s sent ahead to the Ark to lay Lexa down carefully on the bed and hook her up to an IV drip of antibiotics, she collapses into a chair and falls asleep, head on her hand, almost immediately.

She wakes up to a miserably stiff neck and to Lexa’s quiet breathing. She’s been moved, somehow without her knowledge, into a bed, and blankets have been pulled over her and tucked up under her chin in a way that immediately makes her think of her mother. Her throat feels tight and her eyes grow hot, and she wipes her face on the pillow for a moment before slowly getting out of bed, every muscle in her body aching.

She checks Lexa’s vitals and runs through her chart, making a satisfied noise in the back of her throat as she observes the uptick in her numbers. Then she turns to the sleeping Commander – the sleeping girl – Lexa, and feels her throat grow tight yet again.

Her head wound is wrapped in a tight, neat bandage that can only be Abby’s work – nobody else has that kind of skill. Clarke can see the telltale bulge of stitches under the gauze and can picture their neat rows, knitting together the torn flesh so that it can heal. Lexa’s skin is covered in bruises and abrasions, and ointment – likely antibiotic – shines on some of them under the harsh fluorescents of the medical bay. Lexa has been thoroughly treated, given the best of the Ark’s care, and Clarke knows who was responsible for that. She knows Abby doesn’t like Lexa – she never has, and it’s only gotten worse after the missile, after seeing Lexa covered in blood and death and victory, after their weeks of circling and growling around Clarke. But Abby cares enough about _Clarke_ to not let her distrust of Lexa get in the way of her treatment, and that means more than Clarke can put into words. She settles for stroking Lexa’s hand where she holds it and silently thanking her mom.

When she wakes again there’s a plate of food slowly congealing on her bedside table, and Lexa attempting to sit up and get out of bed. “ _No,”_ Clarke says loudly, making her jump guiltily, and she allows herself a smirk before getting out of her own bed to push Lexa back down. The Commander looks grumpy until Clarke climbs in next to her, settling herself along the side of Lexa that’s not bedecked with a variety of sensors.

“If you think you can be a good patient and listen to what the doctors say – and yes, that includes my mom – and not try to get out of bed for the next two days, I promise I’ll make it worth your while,” Clarke says, grinning at Lexa and letting the Commander take that how she wants. She can tell just how exhausted Lexa is by dimly her eyes to light up.

“And what does that mean, Clarke of the Sky People?” she says, in a voice so hoarse that it nearly brings tears to Clarke’s eyes when she remembers just how much water had been in Lexa’s lungs, how close she came to never seeing those eyes light up again. But she forces herself to keep smiling, to brush aside the afterimage of how pale and still Lexa had looked on that table as she tried to force her lungs to work again.

“It means…I’m happy that you came back to me,” Clarke says when she feels she can trust her voice, and then hurries to clarify: “In this lifetime.”

“In this lifetime,” Lexa repeats, remembering how Clarke had looked when she’d first seen her in the Mountain, full of fire and life and with lips fresh-kissed. As though Clarke can glean her thoughts, she reaches down to press her mouth to Lexa’s, and Lexa lets herself relax into the kiss, into the soft cushioning of the bed, into Clarke’s arms. When Clarke tells her to sleep, she does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes that are NOT on Trigedasleng:
> 
> *teina kom em: Trigedasleng nerds might just be able to figure this one out. If not...well that would be telling, wouldn't it? /evil grin
> 
> Okay fine, this one won't be giving anything away: 
> 
> Nou get yu daun hashta ai: Don't worry about me.
> 
> So I've decided to update on Sundays because we're not going to be seeing a new episode of The 100 until 2016 /breaks down sobbing/ no, okay, I'm fine, I swear. /is totally not fine/ I know that my fic is a poor substitute but hopefully it will help to tide us over until then?


	3. With our hands over our hearts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Lexa's a terrible patient, Clarke realizes that she still has work to do, and Octavia's trials begin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks so much for everyone's enthusiastic and insightful and always entertaining comments! They made a TRULY shitty week not actually so bad. I really do love it when you guys get in depth with me in your comments - they give me things to think about that I might not even have considered, or that I might not have considered in as much depth. So keep em coming, and I hope you enjoy this chapter!
> 
> Also, I'm glad everyone enjoyed last week's Trigedasleng riddle, because there's another one for you in the endnotes! Chapter title is from "Our Own House," MisterWives.

Lexa is, of course, up and on her feet far sooner than any doctor could possibly recommend, itching to get out of the confines of the Ark’s medical bay and the Ark itself. After two days’ worth of unannounced drop-ins that culminate in her walking in on Lexa attempting to seduce her daughter in order to convince Clarke to let her out of bed, Abby throws her hands up and declares that if the Commander would like to die of pneumonia or bronchitis she’s done trying to stop her. Lexa is chastened for approximately fifteen seconds and then celebrates her newfound freedom by going for a walk around the camp’s yard and returning promptly to her bed with a very nasty cough.

She’s bounced back by the next morning, though, and is soon doing laps around Camp Jaha’s electric fence, chucking sticks and rocks at it to see it spark and crackle. Her warriors are restless as well – the rains have finally moved on, it seems, and a brisk wind blowing out of the northwest has brought a patchwork of racing clouds and bright, cold sunshine, and the urge to get out and explore the world.

Clarke feels it too. She’s confused for a while about why her steps keep taking her in the direction of the gate, why her eyes keep turning in the direction of the distant mountains, until she identifies the feeling as something she’d read about once: _wanderlust_ , it’s called. She can understand its presence in Lexa and her people – having lived their lives untrammeled by steel walls and the crushing dark of space, to be kept inside Camp Jaha must feel something like a cage. They stay for their Commander, but daily they grow more restless, more impatient. Clarke can tell that they’re on the edge of another incident like the one that happened before the flood, and she mentions this to her mother.

Abby sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Well, we don’t want that, do we?” It’s clear that the screams of the boys as they were shocklashed by the Guard are still fresh in her mind.

“Will a journey back to Tondc kill Lexa?” Clarke says, mouth quirking in a way that her mother echoes.

“No,” Abby says, swallowing her _Unfortunately_. “But if she tries to run around like she usually does she’ll probably wind up right back in bed here – if it isn’t too late.”

“That should be enough of a deterrent, then,” Clarke says. “Let me go back with her to the village. I’ll make sure she stays put.”

“But I just got you here,” Abby says, a little desperately, even though it’s been over a week now and that’s not exactly true. But Clarke understands; there’s still a part of her that wants to cling to her mother and let her mother cling onto her.

"I know," she says, giving her mom a swift hug. “But somebody’s going to snap soon and things are going to go south really quickly. It’s only a couple of extra days.”

Abby sighs again and runs a hand through her hair before saying, “All right. If only to get Lexa out of here.”

Clarke dutifully rolls her eyes at her mom, though the truth is she doesn’t blame her at this point. Abby’s never been Lexa’s biggest fan, but the Commander hasn’t been doing much to recommend herself lately. The first day or so she’d been all weak and adorably kittenish – shivering with fever, she’d demand more blankets, before shoving them off abruptly and gasping, “ _No!_ Too hot.” Moments later, though, she’d be begging Clarke for more, stuttering out “Cold! Clarke, please!” between chattering teeth. It had been cute for a little while, but she’d gotten rapidly more demanding and less cooperative as she’d begun to feel better and now she’s a definitive nuisance. If Abby doesn’t kill her soon, Clarke just might.

Lexa takes the news of her impending freedom as can be expected: pumping a fist in the air and letting out a whoop that swiftly turns into a racking cough. She’s far less enthused about the condition Clarke sets: during the return journey, Lexa will be riding on one of the wagons. She tries everything from whining to pouting to ill-considered seduction (halfway through her attempt she ends up winded and having to lie down, glaring as Clarke tries not to giggle). But Clarke is firm: either Lexa will be on the wagon, or she’ll be staying here.

After one more night spent within the cold web of steel that is the Ark, and one more 2 AM vital check from Abby – which, Lexa strongly suspects, is more an attempt by the Chancellor to make sure that she and Clarke are in their own beds, as she has been _out of the woods_ , according to the Sky People, for nearly a whole day now – Lexa’s desperation wins out. Morning finds her perched very grumpily atop a wagon, chewing mechanically on dried fruit and glaring at Clarke as she walks ahead with Bellamy and Octavia, who is chattering animatedly about something. Lexa suspects it’s the prospect of being reunited with Lincoln that has the _Skaigona_ so excited, and ordinarily she wouldn’t grudge her that, but the memory of her last parting with Clarke brings a bitter taste to her mouth.

She and Clarke haven’t spoken about it – there had, after all, been a flood and a near-death experience (certainly not Lexa’s first, but definitely not one of her favorites) that had seemed somewhat more pressing. But now, as Lexa broods from atop her wagon, it’s beginning to weigh on her mind. Part of her hopes that she and Clarke can just go back to the way things were, the way _they_ were, and not talk about it. She’s angry with Clarke for the way she behaved but she’s also fully aware that she, too, had not behaved entirely as she should have, and she doesn’t feel like hearing it from Clarke’s lips will serve any purpose. She already feels guilty enough.

Indra's voice startles her out of brooding. “I’m surprised the _Skai Heda_ let you go so soon,” she says, riding up alongside the wagon.

_“Ai seintaim,”_ Lexa mutters. “Although apparently I might as well still be a prisoner for all the good it does me. I am not to run, ride, train, or walk for longer than fifteen minutes without pause for the next week, and then I must undergo an evaluation.” She scrunches up her face and raises her voice in an imitation of Clarke, and Indra rolls her eyes. Lexa knows she’s being childish, but she’s being treated like a child, so she might as well act the part.

“How about standing around and ordering people about?” Indra says, and Lexa knows exactly what she’s talking about – she’s been staving off thinking about it for going on two weeks now because it will only make her feel more guilty.

When Clarke had left for Camp Jaha, Lexa had tried to brush their conflict off and pretend it meant nothing to her – and failed spectacularly, beating two of her _shiljus_ ruthlessly in a sparring bout. Teko was already unconscious, but Kyah was still attempting to get up when Lexa knocked her down, each time more brutally than the last. The only reason she hadn’t seriously injured them was because Tor had seized her from behind while she’d been pounding Kyah into the ground and lifted her up in his great strong arms. He smelled and felt so much like Gustus when he’d held her as she sobbed out her anguish over Costia that all of a sudden everything she’d pushed behind the iron dam that was Heda burst forth. She’d sprinted out of the sparring ring, choking back sobs. She could feel the eyes of everyone on the training ground burning into her like brands.

She’d spent the next day in her tent, refusing food and company, too embarrassed and heartsick to do anything more than croak at Ryder and Indra to leave her alone and throw a pillow at them when they refused to listen. She knows they must have come back at least once because there had been a tray of food by her bed when she had gotten up to relieve herself, but she hadn’t touched it. The next day, she had personally gone and apologized to Kyah and Teko, and they had brushed her apologies aside, proclaiming their faith in and obedience to her as Heda. If anything that had made her feel worse, and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to head to the training ground for the rest of the week, knowing that Indra and Ryder would take care of things in her absence. She sparred privately with Tor and went for longer and longer runs in the forest, sometimes leaving shortly after dawn and not returning until dusk.

She had never liked the way that other people could make her feel – the overwhelming wildfires that threatened to burn her up from the inside and scorch everything beyond. It made her feel young and wild and uncontrolled – absolutely the opposite of everything she needed to be as Heda. She had not been with Costia long enough to feel this way very often, but she’d hated it every time they argued and she hated it now – how it made her feel so very like a child. She’d almost been relieved when the floods had come – it was something to turn her mind to besides her anger and guilt and misery over Clarke and Teko and Kyah. In between arguing with the elder at Esse and organizing the evacuation effort and fighting through the flood to rescue the last few left in the village, she hadn’t had much time to feel at all, which was how she preferred it.

But now, under Clarke’s eagle eye, she’s definitely going to have time to brood. Given how well that had worked out last time, it’s probably best for everyone that she get back into training her _shiljus_ , especially now that they’re all united again. She can take up her time with designing drills, skirmish exercises, and war games…and avoiding talking to Clarke as long as she can.

Indra’s probably guessed some of her thoughts – she’s giving Lexa a very sharp look – but she doesn’t say anything, and Lexa finally responds with a nod. “Yes. I will need to confer with Clarke, but I don’t think that should be an issue.”

Indra’s look grows sharper, and loses any trace of amusement. “I know your feelings for the _Amba,_ Commander, but do not lose sight of the fact that you are Heda and she is not.”

_“Hod yu rein daun,_ Indra,” Lexa growls, anger spiking sharply in her chest. “I have not lost sight of my position. Even Heda listens to a _fisa_ when she is injured. I will not ignore Clarke’s advice merely to prove that I am not ruled by her.”

Indra ducks her head. “My apologies, Commander.” Lexa knows she means it – Indra never apologizes when Lexa exercises her authority unless she actually believes she has something to apologize for.

Lexa nods briskly. “I will resume command of the training as soon as I can,” she says.

“And I will be there,” the general replies, before spurring her horse forward to go and snap at Octavia. Lexa watches as she upbraids the girl for some minor violation of protocol and thinks back to her own time as Anya’s second. It won’t be long for Octavia now, she thinks.

Bored, she eventually manages to wheedle the _haula_ into letting her drive the wagon. It’s not hard – Carter has known her since she was a _goufa_ and he’d even fostered her once for about nine months after her parents died before a harsh winter forced him to give her up once more. She remembers liking the work – the hard physical labor had left her too sore and exhausted every night to think about the raid that had taken her parents’ lives, and the pyre that had taken their bodies.

She had also loved the horses – the velvet feel of their muzzles as they nosed her hands for treats, the soft language of murmurs and small movements that they spoke to one another and that she’d just been starting to learn when Carter had told her – voice heavy with regret – that she’d have to return to the orphans’ hut. She’d cried bitterly that night – three more months and she’d become his apprentice, and she would have had room and board and steady work and wouldn’t have to worry about her future. And Carter had been kind, one of the kindest foster-masters she’d had – his wife had a hard hand and unrelenting standards, but she’d always murmured at how skinny Lexa was, and made sure she had an extra share at the table.

She passes the rest of the return trip to Tondc swapping gossip with Carter about the surviving villagers. She’s saddened to learn that his wife had died in the missile attack, which explains the slump in his shoulders, but there’s pride in his voice as he speaks of his son, newly made squad leader at a small outpost up north. Lexa drags through her memory to see what she can recall of the boy, and gives him a few vague tidbits of their time together at the battle for Mount Weather. She’s pleased she can recall even this much, because Carter drinks in her every word.

By the time they reach Tondc, dusk is lowering and the mosquitoes are out, but not nearly as many as before. There’s a chill to the air that makes Lexa shiver and pull her cloak closer about herself. Clarke sees and makes her way over to the wagon, offering Lexa a hand down. Surprised, Lexa takes it – it’s Clarke’s version of a peace offering, she assumes, to allow her to make her way on her own power into the village and not have her people see their Heda ride in a cart. She clambers stiffly off the wagon, thanks Carter for his time, pats the horses, and follows Clarke up to the head of their column.

There’s little fanfare for their homecoming this time – the villagers are tired and muddy, merely nodding their heads to her and murmuring _“Mounin houm”_ as she goes by. She acknowledges each of them and does her best to keep her legs from shaking, but by the time they’re nearing her tent she’s leaning so much on Clarke that the Sky Girl might as well be carrying her. She knows she shouldn’t be letting this happen and hates the need for it, but she’s somewhat surprised that it does not concern her as much as it did before.

Clarke lifts the flap for Lexa to stagger in and collapse face-first onto her bed, taking a moment to silently scream her frustration at her body’s weakness into her pillow before rolling onto her back and mentally preparing herself to sit up and reach for her bootlaces. But to her surprise Clarke’s already there, undoing them with a sureness that Lexa knows she should find worrying – how many times has Clarke had to do this for her? “What are you doing, Clarke?” Lexa says, her voice hoarse with exhaustion.

“Taking care of you,” the Sky Girl says briskly, but there’s warmth in her voice. Lexa attempts to say she doesn’t need to be babied, but the words get lost on the way to her mouth. Instead, she leans back on the musty-smelling furs and sighs.

She’s halfway to sleep by the time the boots are off and three quarters of the way there when Clarke starts rubbing her feet – apparently her Sky Girl’s hands are talented in more than just the arts of healing and love – but she struggles back to wakefulness when Clarke says, “We need to talk about it, you know.”

“Yes,” Lexa groans, “but does it need to be now? I was just…” She cracks an eye open to see Clarke looking at her narrowly in a way that is strongly reminiscent of the one Anya would get when she suspected Lexa of dogging a run or rushing through a drill to get to a sparring bout. Grumbling “Fine, fine,” under her breath, she tries to sit up, but only makes it to her elbows. She fixes Clarke with a glare. “Talk.”

Clarke looks away, her hands clenching into fists. Lexa feels nails digging into her ankle where Clarke still has a grip but says nothing, just sets her jaw and waits. The words that make their way out of Clarke’s mouth are absolutely the last ones she expects.

“I’m sorry.”

Lexa blinks. Clarke Griffin has many excellent and attractive qualities, but admitting fault first is not one of them. Lexa doesn’t trust herself to say anything, so she waits.

“I should have trusted you,” Clarke says woodenly, like each word is grinding itself out of her throat. “I should have trusted that you wouldn’t let Indra go overboard with them. But Lexa –” She turns to face Lexa abruptly, grabbing for her hand, but chews on her lip instead of finishing her sentence. Lexa squeezes her fingers gently.

“What?”

Clarke looks down, biting her lip. “It’s…this may sound strange, but you’re two different people to me. There’s Lexa, who I _do_ trust and who I know cares about me, and then there’s…”

“Heda,” Lexa finishes, her voice low.

“Yes,” Clarke says, still unable to meet her eyes. “And I don’t always feel like I know Heda. I can’t always predict how she’ll react.”

“I warned you about this, Clarke, when we first started,” Lexa says, a confusing, angry ache coursing through her. “You know who I am. How I must put my people first before matters of the heart. And when it comes to my people, _Heda ste noting noukom keryon-de kom kru.”_

Lexa’s said this enough times in the last month that Clarke knows what it means by heart, without even having to translate it in her head. When she’d asked Lexa what it meant, she’d said, “It’s something Anya always told me. It means that all my authority, all my power, comes to absolutely nothing if I do not have the support, love, trust, and obedience of my people. Everything I am comes from them; everything I have is only because they grant it. My soul belongs to them, in exchange for theirs; if they do not give them to me, I am only human, only myself. With them, however, I am large; I contain multitudes.”

It frustrates Clarke beyond measure that she should be so immovable on this point, and yet for all that it’s Heda saying these things she also wouldn’t be _Lexa_ if she didn’t. Clarke has created the divide between Lexa and Heda in her mind, but perhaps she’s made it too deep. She needs to learn to deal with them both at once, because despite how much she might not want them to be, they are inseparable. Lexa’s people will always come first for her – before the Skaikru, before Clarke – and the truth is that Clarke knows that she’s the same way. All they can hope for is that what’s best for their own people is the same thing. It makes what’s between them sometimes feel a little ridiculous, a little tragic, a little doomed.

“I know that,” Clarke says, a little desperate, and Lexa takes pity on her.

“I know you do, because who you are to your people is not necessarily who you are to me. But we must be careful about how we act in front of them, because the way I might address you when we’re alone and how I must be when we’re in public is different, of necessity.”

She’s being kind of longwinded about it, but Clarke gets the gist: Heda can say things to Clarke that Lexa wouldn’t, and vice versa, but when they’re in public Clarke needs to not react as though it’s Lexa, her girlfriend – or whatever – saying these things, and instead respond as though Lexa’s a fellow ally, a fellow leader. No more outbursts, no screaming matches – they can have these things when they need to, but they have to wait until there are no eyes on them. _Fat chance of that happening,_ Clarke thinks bitterly, but she nods at Lexa. “I get it.”

“And I will do better at keeping my temper,” Lexa says, willing Clarke to understand it for the apology it is. While she believes that much of the fault rests with Clarke for escalating the situation, she herself had done nothing to deescalate it – she’d let her view of Clarke as her Sky Girl slip into her negotiations with the _Amba kom Skaikru_ , and lost control of the situation as a result. Clarke has a tendency, Lexa knows, to shoulder more of the burden than she deserves – and she’s realizing a fearsome desire of her own to take that burden before Clarke can.

“At least until we can get somewhere we can yell at each other properly,” Clarke says, and there’s the smile she’s looking for, small but enough to brighten up the tent like she’d lit a dozen candles. Lexa can’t help but return it.

“I can think of other ways to conduct diplomatic negotiations.” She raises her eyebrows suggestively, though more to hear Clarke laugh than anything else – which she gets, along with a roll of her eyes.

“Oh please. I can see how wiped you are. If you tried any funny business you’d pass out halfway through.”

Lexa fakes being affronted, puffing up her chest, but the movement of air in her lungs brings on another racking cough. Clarke takes the opportunity to push her back into the pillows and hold her there gently. “Rest,” she says, when Lexa’s hacking has subsided. “Keep mostly off your feet and eat well for me for two days, and I’ll let you go back to the training ground as long as I’m certain it won’t kill you.”

Lexa nods, privately thinking _Won_ , but her eyes are already slipping shut. She’s almost asleep when she hears Clarke say in a quiet voice that pierces her, needle-like, to the core, “Can I sleep here tonight?”

Lexa’s eyes snap open once more and take in Clarke’s, wide and blue and beseeching. “Of course,” she says, confused. “Where else would you sleep?”

“Well…I was thinking I’d go to Octavia’s if…if you didn’t want me here,” she says, cracking a small smile, “but if you’re sure…”

Lexa snorts. “I can guarantee you wouldn’t be getting any sleep if you stayed in Octavia’s tent,” she says. “Nobody in the camp got any rest for three days after Lincoln returned, and they’ve been celebrating his successful hunt nightly. You’d think he brought down a _pauna_. In fact, the other night I heard her comparing him to a _pauna._ In…size.”

Clarke makes a face. “Gross.”

“Indeed. That being said, there have definitely been times you’ve given Octavia challenge in the area of volume…”

Clarke hits her a little harder than is strictly necessary, but the mirth dancing in Lexa’s eyes makes her smile, because she hasn’t seen it in what feels like forever. “Sleep,” she says again. Lexa opens up her arms and Clarke settles herself into them, careful not to put pressure on her chest. The Commander’s asleep in moments and it doesn’t take Clarke long to follow, soothed by the sound of Lexa’s heartbeat and her steady breathing.

* * *

 

Despite their conversation, it’s clear enough to Clarke and Lexa that just as things aren’t entirely repaired between one another, they’re not entirely fixed between Trikru and Skaikru. The Volunteers – minus Asmo and Beans, who have not been invited back – keep largely to themselves, and the villagers cast nervous glances at them across the banquet grounds as they eat breakfast that morning. Clarke and Lexa are at first absurdly formal with one another, their interactions infected by the awkwardness and the fact that the last time Tondc had seen them together in public they had been quarreling loudly. Soon, however, they realize that their formality is only hurting them, and do their best to act normally, with varying degrees of success.

As Clarke had suspected would happen, Lexa’s already badgering her about the evaluation to go back to training after barely twenty-four hours have passed; if she’d said one day Lexa would have been at her the next morning. She listens to her lungs and tests their strength with the medical instruments from the small bag of supplies her mother had packed for her before she’d left Camp Jaha, and while she doesn’t like how much fluid she can still hear moving in them, they’re better than she expected, so she reluctantly clears Lexa to head to the training ground. “ _But no training!”_ she shouts as Lexa bounces down the path, “and _slow down!”_ With a grimace Lexa slows her steps for maybe half a second before picking up the pace again. Clarke exchanges dark looks with Nyko, who’s arrived to go picking medicinal herbs with her.

_“Gonakru,”_ he grunts, with a glare in the direction of the training ground.

“Seriously,” Clarke grumbles back.

The clash of metal and the ringing of war cries echoes up the path to the training ground, and the only thing that keeps Lexa from breaking into a trot is the thought of the dressing-down she’ll get from Clarke if she returns with a poorly-disguised cough. Her hopes for a different sort of dressing-down – the thought makes her smirk to herself – help her keep her speed under control, but by the time she makes it to the training ring she feels like Gona when he’s been too long in the stable: straining at the bit and eager to race.

It doesn’t take long to find her _shiljus,_ but she frowns when she catches sight of them. Instead of them drilling with throwing knives as they should be, they all appear to be hanging about on the fence-posts surrounding the sparring ring and watching a pair of fighters. She has to circle the ring until she gets to Ryder and Indra before she can look beyond the forest of broad shoulders and see who those fighters are.

Fio and Octavia are circling one another carefully, bodies low and movements slight and calculated. Lexa’s gratified to see how quickly Octavia’s footwork has improved, as it had been the worst thing about her technique for quite a while – previously she’d focused so much on her sword that she’d lost several bouts due due to tripping over her own feet or over an unexpected tree root. Now, though, her steps are measured and sure, and she matches Fio pace for pace, turning her body so that none of it is left unguarded. Lexa can still read each of her next movements through her hips, and reminds herself to mention that to Indra when she gets a chance, but right now the general is completely intent on her Second, watching the bout with tight lips and a set face.

All at once Octavia’s careful footwork falters and her left side is exposed to Fio, who sees his chance and takes it: with a roar, he flings himself at her, aiming right for a notch in her armor. With blunted training swords he won’t do more than leave a nasty bruise, but if he were to strike her there with live steel she wouldn’t last long enough for a healer to make it to her.

Octavia is seemingly caught off guard by the explosiveness of Fio’s charge and stumbles backward. Lexa sees her ruse immediately, but Fio’s so caught up in pressing his advantage that he misses it: in three paces she’s got him exactly where she wants him, and it only takes one more before she’s used his own momentum to dump him to the ground and press her sword against his throat, her boot pinning his weapon to the dirt. After a moment, he nods. _“Yun sparnes, gona.”_

Octavia’s eyes snap up to Indra, who nods tersely. She gleefully nods down at Fio and lets him up, then crosses the ring in two bouncing strides, climbs its low wall, and vaults over its fence in a nimble hop. The _shiljus_ is cheering for her and patting her on the back – even Tor has abandoned his usual stony demeanor and cracked a smile – and Lexa’s heartened to see all of them, Trikru and Skaikru alike, bonded in their shared gladness for their youngest member’s achievement. But Octavia ignores them, forging towards where Indra stands, motionless as the stone statue at the border of her village. As they stare at each other, the jubilation of the _shiljus_ fades away into silence, and Octavia’s giant grin slowly dies.

“You very nearly let him take your head off on your third pass, _Seken_ ,” Indra snaps. “Your footwork was off for most of that bout, and you telegraphed your every move with your hips. You will have to be much better than that, _Seken,_ if you intend to last longer than a moment in battle.” She turns on her heel and heads out of the training ground, leaving Octavia standing devastated in her wake.

The Skaikru erupt in a furious uproar before Ryder calls them to order, directing them towards the racks of weapons that hold sheathed throwing knives. The Trikru are quieter; they know the meaning behind Indra’s harsh words, and Lexa allows herself a small smile as she follows to observe their progress. Her smile fades, however, when she catches sight of Octavia’s face: the Sky warrior looks crushed, as though she’s lost something far more than the sparring match.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigedasleng
> 
> *means I made stuff up
> 
> Ai seintaim: Me too
> 
> Hod yu rein daun: Mind your place
> 
> *Haula: Carter (slurred from hauler)
> 
> Goufa: young girl
> 
> Mounin houm: Welcome home
> 
> Heda ste noting noukom keryon-de kom kru: Guess!
> 
> Won: one
> 
> Pauna: gorilla
> 
> Gonakru: warriors
> 
> Yun *sparnes, gona: Your mercy, warrior. Sparnes is slurred from “spare,” as in “spare my life.” So essentially this is the Trigedasleng way of saying “I yield.” 
> 
> Fos: First
> 
> Seken: Second (thanks to wolfteam000 for the tip on this one!)


	4. No need for stitches / cause love mends the pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Octavia's trials continue and it becomes harder for Lexa to keep their purpose a secret while retaining the obedience of the Skaikru. When she looks to Clarke for help, the Ambassador's trust is tested. Lexa and Indra have a bro moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so I'm not dead! Just my job making me sometimes wish I was. Anyway, thanks for those of you guys who are still reading and commenting - I appreciate it beyond all measure, even if I'm not as responsive as I could be. Hopefully the shitstorm that pays me (tho not enough) will be calming down soon and I can get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Hope you guys like this one and can still bear with me!
> 
> As usual, notes on Trigedasleng are at the end. Chapter title is from "Our Own House," MisterWives.

Lexa knows that the majority of her Trikru will keep their mouths shut, but she can see one immediate problem: Lincoln. He’s out in the woods right now, consulting with the village’s head hunter about a set of tracks that may require organizing a _pauna_ hunt if they get too close to the village. He’s not due back until nightfall, so she’ll have until then to figure out how to keep him from explaining Indra’s behavior to Octavia, but she’s so wrapped up in considering the issue that she’s blindsided entirely by Clarke.

Their afternoon training session is with swords and Lexa’s so wrapped up in critiquing Bellamy and Monroe’s form that she fails to notice Clarke coming down the path. Indra’s been griping at Octavia steadily for the last hour – Lexa’s learned to tune it out, having been through this before with plenty of other Seconds, but she’s a bit annoyed because it’s distracting her own students and she keeps having to snap at Bellamy to refocus him from glaring at Indra. The latest time she has to do this he whips his head back around and redirects his glare at her, jaw working hard, but her warning stare is ultimately enough to keep him from saying or doing anything he might regret.

She watches him get back to forcefully parrying Monroe’s attacks with more than a little satisfaction – even weak as a rabbit and breathing hard from just standing there, she still has the power to make people obey – but also concern. The Trikru warriors on the training ground know the score, having been through the same wringer that Lexa has and that Octavia’s currently entering. They know better than to let Indra’s invectives bother them, and they know better than to say anything. This is the way of things, the way they’ve been for years – but the Skaikru are a new element. They don’t know that this is how things are done, that it’s what’s necessary for turning an angry child with a sword in their hand into a warrior, and it’s clear what they think of the harshness of her people’s ways.

Voices rise again from the other end of the training ground, and Bellamy’s head jerks around again, letting Monroe’s sword smack firmly against his right bicep. Lexa compliments her even though it was his inattention more than her skill that allowed the hit, and is about to take him to task for his distraction, when Octavia’s voice joins Indra’s in the shouting and her own eyes follow Bellamy’s. _Maybe,_ she thinks, _it might be time –_ but no, Octavia’s sinking sullenly back into obeisance, returning to her drill with a hardened jaw and eyes bright and blinking back dampness. She turns back to Bellamy and Monroe and is about to snap at them to get back to work when she feels a soft touch at her elbow. She knows it’s Clarke’s even before she hears the voice low in her ear.

“Lexa, what the hell is going on?”

“Keep going,” she says loudly to Bellamy, and when he doesn’t acknowledge her, she turns to Monroe and says, “Keep _him_ going.” Monroe nods, though she doesn’t look happy about it. Lexa takes hold of Clarke’s arm and tugs her gently off the training ground.

She knows what she’s going to do with very little internal struggle. If Lexa can make her understand what’s going on and get her on her side about it, Clarke can use her influence over the rest of the Skaikru to keep them from starting a revolt over what they see as gratuitously poor treatment of one of their own. She knows there’s no chance that she’ll be able to let Bellamy in on the situation without him telling Octavia, but if Clarke can keep the Blake boy in line she suspects the rest of them will fall in as well. Lexa’s only point of hesitation is the fact that only initiated warriors are supposed to know this secret, but she doesn’t hesitate for long. She’s already broken – and is still breaking – plenty of their rules and laws and customs for Clarke. What’s one more to that pile?

As soon as they’re out of even Indra’s earshot she turns to face Clarke. The quick walk has made her a little breathless and the words spill out of her mouth ungracefully, but she hopes she’s making herself clear. The frown on Clarke’s face only deepens, but that could be because she doesn’t like what Lexa’s saying. “This is the beginning of the end of Octavia’s training. When a _Fos_ thinks their _Seken_ is ready to undertake their trial for initiation, they will deliberately become much harder on them, even cruel. It is meant to drive them out of the comfortable place of being a _Seken_ and force them to fight for their place in their clan as a warrior. When Octavia’s had enough, she will challenge Indra. If she wins, she’ll be initiated as a full warrior of the Trikru.”

Clarke blinks, but her frown returns quickly. “Why doesn’t Indra just tell her, then?”

"Because she's supposed to come to it on her own,” Lexa says, still in a rush, annoyance mingling with the desperation she feels to get Clarke to understand. “She’s supposed to feel as though she only has herself to rely on. Her _Fos_ has been her teacher, her trainer, and her shield, but in being so she has allowed her to remain a child. That ends now.” She finds herself parroting what she’d been told three years ago by Anya, as she stood, bloodied and bruised and victorious, over her mentor in the mud of another training ring. Her sword had been so close to Anya’s throat that it had brushed her skin several times as she’d spoken, yet her _Fos_ hadn’t flinched, even with three broken ribs and a badly sprained arm. Lexa, for all her victory, had fared much worse. But the lesson that was meant to be taught by the final bout between _Fos_ and _Seken_ was what beat in Trigedakru hearts: _Ge smak raun, gyon op nodotaim._

Clarke nods, taking it in, processing it, and Lexa watches for her reaction with held breath and a chewed lip. Finally Clarke sighs and says, “All right,” and Lexa lets her breath out in a rush. But because it’s Clarke and because she has to question things, especially their deepest-held beliefs and traditions, she barely gives Lexa a second to feel relieved before holding up her hand and saying, “I just hope you know what you’re doing. This might be how it works for Grounders but Octavia’s from the Ark, no matter how far she might have come from there. And you need to remember that, and so does Indra.”

Lexa nods, then draws a deep breath, steeling herself. Now comes the tough part. It’s been a very long time since she was in the position of supplicant, since she’d had to ask for anything – it was usually given to her, or she commanded it, or she took it if it was refused. Clarke, though, is different, she reminds herself. Clarke cannot be commanded or pushed or taken. Though she might technically have that power over the Sky Girl, to use it would be a betrayal of the worst kind. “I need your help,” she says haltingly. “I need…”

“You need me to help you keep them from rioting,” Clarke says, gesturing back towards where her people are lined up against one another, badly pretending to focus on their swordplay while watching Indra mercilessly critique Octavia’s footwork.

“Yes,” Lexa says, nearly cracking a smile at the relief she feels that Clarke understands, that she doesn’t have to ask. “That’s exactly -”

“I’ll do what I can,” Clarke says abruptly, and there’s a darkness in her eyes that turns Lexa’s relief instantly to worry. “If this goes on much longer, though, I can’t make any promises.”

“I know,” Lexa says, all of a sudden in a hurry to have this over with, to be out from under the weight of Clarke’s gaze. “Clarke, I know you think this is harsh, but –”

“Ninety-seven years of survival, right?” Clarke says with a humorless smile, and for once Lexa doesn’t feel the usual annoyance at how often her Sky Girl interrupts her. “Gotta count for something.”

Lexa doesn’t quite understand the turn of phrase, but she can read Clarke’s tone of grudging acceptance well enough, and nods. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Clarke says and starts to turn away, but a sudden surge of worry makes Lexa grab her wrist before she can go far.

“Clarke, I… I’m sorry about this, but if Octavia’s going to become one of us, it has to happen this way. I’m trusting you to keep this a secret, and I need you to trust me that this will work.”

Trust her. Lexa might know this or she might not, but she’s said the magic words, played directly into Clarke’s guilt over how she _hadn’t_ trusted Lexa to keep her people safe and Clarke had nearly lost her. Lexa is standing before her, tall and straight but paler and thinner than she’s ever seen her, and at the same time Clarke sees her flat on the table, rain beating down on her face, not breathing. Clarke takes a deep breath and forces feeling into her voice as she says, “All right.” She flashes Lexa a brief smile, the only one she can manage. “I’m trusting you.”

Lexa’s smile is also small, but it’s the kind that brings light to her entire face, the kind that Clarke seriously wishes did not affect her as much as it does. “Thank you.”

She turns to head back to the training ground but now it’s Clarke’s turn to grab her. “Uh-uh. No way, Commander. You’ve had more than enough time on your feet today.”

Lexa starts spluttering in outrage but Clarke shakes her head. “You promised me you’d listen to me when I told you to take it easy, and I’m telling you now. If you go back and rest I’ll let you come to the evening session, but if you fight me on this I _will_ carry you back to the tent.”

She can see Lexa eyeing her narrowly through her glower, sizing her up. Clarke gives her a smug look. If Lexa were in full trim there’d be no contest – she’s got three inches and probably twenty pounds of muscle on Clarke, and she’s proven she knows how to use this to her advantage before – both in hand-to-hand sparring matches and in the sparring of a different kind that often takes place back in their tent afterwards. But at this point, Lexa has to stop and catch her breath on the way from the sparring ground to the banquet table, so Clarke’s got an unquestionable advantage.  

Apparently she agrees with Clarke’s assessment, because after a moment more of glaring Lexa sticks out her tongue like an actual child and turns on her heel, marching stiffly up the path. Clarke rolls her eyes and makes her way back over towards where Bellamy’s standing with Monroe, both of them having entirely given up the pretense of doing anything other than glaring death at Indra.

Bellamy starts the minute Clarke is within earshot, growling, “What the _fuck_ is she doing? Octavia was _crying_ last night, Clarke. I haven’t seen her cry since she started training with Indra and she was practically bawling. And where the fuck is Lincoln? I know that her and your _girlfriend_ sent him away because they know he wouldn’t let her do this –”

“You done?” Clarke says roughly, raising an eyebrow at him. His fury rises to inarticulate levels and she takes the opportunity to yank him aside. “Listen, Bellamy, I know you’re pissed – I am too,” she says in a low voice when they’re out of the reach of Monroe’s straining ears. “But this is – it’s part of Grounder culture, okay, and we don’t have to understand it but Octavia wants to become part of it and we need to let it play out.” She stares at him, willing him to reach through his anger and understand, because she’s told him pretty much the outer limit of what Lexa said she can. “You need to trust us on this, okay? I know what’s happening here and it’s not - it’s something she has to go through. Indra’s not just being cruel for no reason.”  

He stares back at her for a long moment, jaw working as he wrestles with her words, before he says, “I trust you, Princess, but I don’t trust _them.”_ He jerks his thumb in Indra’s direction, though Clarke understands it to mean more than just the general.

“Yeah, well you need to start,” Clarke says. “I know it’s hard but we need to become more than _us_ and _them._ It’s the only way we’re going to keep the alliance going, and the alliance is the only way we’re going to survive on the ground.”

Bellamy snorts. “Yeah, because this is just about the _alliance.”_

Clarke narrows her eyes at him, daring him to keep going, but finally he sighs. “All right. What do you need me to do?”

“They all listen to you, so I need you to keep them calm. Keep an eye on the hotheads especially – Monroe, Graham, Benson – and pull them aside if it looks like they’re losing it. We can’t have another Asmo and Beans.”

Bellamy nods tightly. “Fine. I’ll do what you want – for now. But if this goes on much longer, Clarke, I can’t guarantee they’re not gonna go off all by themselves – and I can’t promise I won’t be right next to them.”

Clarke shakes her head. “Just as long as you’re not starting it.”   

* * *

Lexa makes her way back up the path to the village, but as the slowly rising shells of the houses come into view, she feels a sudden flash of stubbornness and takes an abrupt left, letting her steps direct themselves into the woods, along a path that most people would realize was a path unless they were looking for it. This is about the worst idea, she knows – of all her secret spots and getaways this is probably the least accessible, requiring a careful walk along a barely-maintained deer trail and culminating in a climb up a steep rock wall that’s challenging even when she’s at full strength. But she’s already gotten this far and she’ll be damned if she slinks back into camp with her tail between her legs. Besides, she just doesn’t want to face _people_ , and this is about the only place she knows of in the area of Tondc where solitude is guaranteed.

Except, apparently, it’s not. Lexa’s about three quarters of the way up the cliff face by the time she’s admitted to herself that this was a bad idea. She’s missed the correct path entirely and is now staring at the handholds to her right just beyond her reach. She can feel her sweaty hands starting to slip on the holds she’s got and the ground is dizzyingly far below. She knows that if she falls now she’ll most likely break something, and the solitude that she’d prized in this place will become her enemy. There’s really only one thing she can think of, which is to make a desperate leap for the handholds to her right and pray that she latches onto something. It’s a move that she wouldn’t hesitate to try when she was in better health, but she’s _very_ aware at this point that she’s not at full strength. Still, it’s that or the ground – and if she’s going to fall, she’d rather it be while at least attempting to –

“I wouldn’t try that if I were you, _Heda_ ,” says a dryly amused voice from above, and Lexa looks up to see a smug-looking Indra and a calloused hand just within arm’s reach. Lexa huffs out a laugh, breathlessly, and then reaches for Lexa’s hand, simultaneously launching herself upwards with one foot. The general pulls her up to the lip of the ledge with ease, and Lexa’s able to get a knee under herself and lurch forward, panting openly against the coolness of the clifftop. Indra’s already seen her nearly about to break her ass on the forest floor, she rationalizes; there’s no point in attempting to pretend she has any dignity now.

As soon as she’s caught her breath, which takes a lot longer than she’d like it to, Lexa maneuvers herself into a sitting position and takes stock of their surroundings. They’re on a flat rock ledge overtop a waterfall – not a large one, just enough to kick up mist that turns golden in the late afternoon sun and make enough noise that they have to raise their voices somewhat to be heard. “I thought I was the only one who knew about this place. I’ve never found anybody else here before.”

Lexa doesn’t turn to meet Indra’s wry look, but she can hear it in the general’s voice: “This is my village, Heda. I’ve been general here for nearly twenty years. You think I don’t know every nook and cranny of it?”

Lexa sighs, an uncomfortably reedy sound that reminds her of the fluid still in her lungs. “An oversight on my part. But you don’t go to the trouble of coming here and scaling a rock wall without being desirous of solitude, so I’ll let you have it.”

The silence stretches between them for a long minute and Lexa takes this for acceptance of her offer, so she carefully begins to clamber to her feet, stifling a groan at the unusual stiffness of her muscles and the thought of the climb down. Maybe she should just jump down the waterfall, she thinks. She’ll probably break her neck, but – it had worked for Clarke and Anya once. Who knows, she might get lucky again.

_“Hod op,”_ Indra says, just as she’s beginning to test her footing at the edge of the cliff, to search for handholds. Lexa’s head snaps up, and she frowns. She had not been expecting that. “You’ve gotten yourself here. You might as well stay.” Lexa nods, grateful for the general’s offer, and returns to her seat by the falls. They both look out on the glistening water for a few more minutes, and Lexa finds her thoughts turning again to Clarke and Anya – but mostly to Anya. Indra is her last remaining link to the woman who had been her teacher, her trainer, her worst enemy, and her best friend for most of the life she can remember.

It had been Anya who’d found her on Search, had seen the spirit of the Commander in the scrappy orphan girl and brought her, kicking and screaming, to the Capital for the evaluation. It had been Anya who’d taught her that not everyone was out to kill her or hurt her or take whatever she had, but that some people were – and how to tell the difference. It had been Anya who’d taught her how to fight people vastly larger than her, how to choose battles she knew she could win and turn certain losses into total victories. She had pushed Lexa beyond the limits of endurance, teased her and tormented her mercilessly, and silently wrapped her wounds with gentleness unexpected from fingers so used to war. It had been Anya whose eyes she’d first sought out as the Conclave pronounced that she’d taken up the mantle of Commander, and set the red sash on her shoulder for the first time. And it had been Anya who had found her, half-starved and half-mad with grief in the wilderness, dead-eyed and screaming hoarsely for Costia. _Love is weakness_ , she’d told Lexa, even as she’d handled her gently into a bed and pulled the furs over her shaking body. And Lexa had not had cause to doubt that lesson, not until Clarke. Maybe, she thinks, Anya had simply been trying to give her another way to survive. Love could bring pain…but it could also bring hope, hope that there was something beyond the pain, something worth fighting for.

Lexa dares a glance at Indra, wondering if she can answer these questions. There’s so much about Anya that she doesn’t know, she realizes. Where she came from, whether she still had parents, if she’d had lovers, if she’d had children… And Indra seems to be the only person who could have answered these questions. Lexa wishes that when they’d heard the news of Anya’s death, they could have honored her properly: had a pyre and given her a warrior’s send-off, then gotten drunk together and asked all of the questions that a _Fos_ and a _Seken,_ as well as a pair of mourning friends, could have had for one another. But Anya’s braid had been delivered to her hand by a blue-eyed Sky Girl, and there had been battles to plan and a Mountain to take and the time had never seemed right. And now, Lexa feels, the time has passed.

"I'm sorry," Lexa says finally, once she's caught her breath enough to speak without panting. She’s not typically one to apologize – she’s the Commander, after all, and to apologize is to admit you made the wrong decision, that you were weak – but she knows that if she comes here she comes for solitude, and she’s certain Indra has the same purpose. “I didn’t realize that anyone else knew about this place.”

Indra snorts. “I’ve been this village’s general for twenty years and you think I don’t know every little nook and cranny and hiding spot there is?”

Lexa nods. “I guess not. I’ve just been coming here since I was thirteen and I’ve never seen anyone else here.”

“That’s right, Heda. You’ve never _seen_ anyone else.”

Lexa bites her lip but is unable to keep color from rising to her face. She and Costia had been out here more than once, sleeping entwined under the stars or enjoying the water – and one another – in the sunlight. She opens her mouth a couple of times but nothing comes out. When she darts a glance at the general, she sees a glint of amusement in her eye, and realizes that Indra’s teasing her. She rolls her eyes, and now Indra actually cracks a smile. “I, too, was young once, Heda.”

“I’m not certain I can imagine it,” Lexa says tartly, and that makes the general bark out a laugh. She sobers quickly, though.

“What are your thoughts on Octavia’s progress?”

Lexa winces. Of course, the very subject she’d come up here to avoid thinking about. “The Sky People are restless, Indra. They don’t understand our methods and they think that you’re being harsh on her unnecessarily. I’ve asked Clarke to keep them calm but she’s not particularly calm herself, and I don’t know how long –”

“That was not what I asked,” Indra says sharply, and Lexa’s reminded so much of Anya that she whips her head around to make sure that it’s not her _Fos_ sitting there next to her. Indra meets her gaze darkly, but there’s an odd quality in her look that Lexa might think was _vulnerability_ , if she didn’t know better.

After a moment of holding her gaze, Indra sighs and looks away. “The Sky girl has learned quickly, even by our standards. I had not hoped for such rapid progression from one who is so foreign to our ways. I know that Lincoln takes her out nearly every night and helps her train, but even so, she’s a _Seken_ any _Fos_ could be proud of. But her reaction to my challenge is not what I expected. Whenever Octavia has been beaten down, she rises again as soon as she can find her feet. That was why I agreed to take her on in the first place; the gods know it wasn’t for any wisdom she had.” Lexa smirks, but rearranges her face when Indra gives her a quelling look. “Now, though, I wonder whether it was I who was lacking wisdom. Perhaps she simply cannot understand the _ganlet_ and what it means. Perhaps those who are from the sky can never truly become one with the ground.”

Lexa sits and listens, but Indra does not go on. After a moment she catches the general darting a glance at her, and realizes that she actually wants Lexa’s opinion, though she’ll never say it. After blinking back her surprise, she says, “Maybe they will never truly be as we are, because their experiences of life have been so vastly different. The stories Clarke has told me about growing up on the Ark, if she weren’t telling me with a straight face I would think she was making up _desney_. But I don’t think they’re fundamentally different from us. I think they can learn. I think that they _have._ But.” Lexa draws a deep breath, readying herself for what she’s about to say. She hadn’t even considered it until she heard Indra’s words, heard the lost and questioning tone in which she said them, and realized that while it may be breaking decades of tradition, this is a new world for more than just the Sky People. The ones who fell from the stars have changed the world for the Trigedakru too, and maybe they need to change with it.

“Octavia may never understand what the _ganlet_ means,” Lexa says, testing each word on her tongue like it’s a step on uncertain ground. “It’s something that we’ve learned from our first steps down here, but up there it would probably be seen as gratuitous cruelty. Octavia’s spirit is strong, but it’s not indomitable. Eventually it will be broken. And I think that would be a far worse crime than making an exception and breaking our tradition.”

Indra whips around to stare at Lexa, wide-eyed and furious. _“Heda, you can’t talk like that!”_ she fires off in rapid Trigedasleng. _“You are the guardian of our ways, and I cannot hear this from you!”_

Lexa forces herself to keep from flinching, to keep her jaw hard and her voice firm. “I know my place, Indra, but it seems you forget yours.”

The general scoffs at her and turns away, but the set of her shoulders has relaxed somewhat. Lexa’s not sure what to make of that. “Heda, I can’t do what you say.” Again that slight vulnerability, that crack in Indra’s armor that she’s never seen before. She tries not to let it scare her as much as it does, that someone like _Indra_ – the fiercest warrior she’s ever known, next to Anya – can have misgivings so deep. But then again, she knows very well that the burden lies heaviest on those who rise the farthest.

“I’m not asking you to,” she says, gentling her tone, and Indra’s posture relaxes further. She hopes that the general understands what she means because if she has to explain she knows that Indra will resist. _Revolution through inertia,_ she thinks to herself. _The strangest sort of change there is._

After a moment, when Indra still hasn’t spoken and still won’t look at her, Lexa finds her own misgivings rising to the surface – but not about Octavia. She knows this is possibly the worst person to ask – Indra’s never been fond of the Sky People with the exception of Octavia, and she tolerates Kane, but Lexa’s fairly certain that if she came upon Abby alone in the woods at night it would probably be swift and look very convincingly like an accident. And yet the people that Lexa _wants_ to ask are dead. She can hear Anya’s ringing tone, Gustus’s calm, cautious voice – but not their words. Indra is the only chance she has of hearing those.

“Indra, I must ask you something in confidence.”

“ _Sha, Heda,_ ” Indra sighs. “What you say won’t leave this rock.”

“Do you think…do you think that Clarke makes me weak? That I’m making a poor choice by…being with her?”

When Indra’s eyes meet hers, their look is sharp, but they soften as they rove over Lexa’s face. “I think…that you have perhaps been less…steady than you once were, Heda,” she says at last. “But there is such a thing as being too steady. Steady as a river means that you flow smoothly onwards, but you can change course should it be required. Steady as a stone, though, means that you go nowhere, you crack instead of bending, and eventually the cold that seeps in through your cracks will break you from the inside out.”

Lexa blinks through the metaphor; Indra’s usually a lot more direct and it takes her off guard. “I’m not sure I –”

“What you’ve told me, Heda, is that change comes whether we want it or not,” Indra says, with a hint of amusement. “And it’s not always the worst thing. Just don’t let the Sky Girl make you forget that you are _Heda._ Your…care for her must not overflow your care for your people. And that’s not an easy thing to balance. Not all leaders can.” The general looks away, staring at something in the far distance, maybe something in the far past, Lexa thinks. “But if anyone can do it, I think it might be you.”

Lexa’s shock shows so plainly on her face that Indra laughs, and then laughs harder at the sour look Lexa gives her. When she finally sobers, she slaps Lexa on the back so hard it makes her cough. “Come, Heda, it will be dinnertime soon. Let’s get you back to the village before I have an angry Sky Girl on my hands who wants to know why you can’t even obey a _fisa’s_ orders.”

“But – you –” Lexa splutters, trying in vain to reference the week previous, when Indra had been cautioning her not to let Clarke have too much influence over her. Indra just snorts.

“Times change, Heda,” she says. “Or hadn’t you been listening?”

Lexa’s so wound up that she can only let out an inarticulate growl, and follow a laughing Indra back down the cliff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ughhhhhh I just hate torturing Octavia but I promise it'll be over soon! Let me know what you guys thought. 
> 
> Trigedasleng: 
> 
> *Means I made stuff up
> 
> Pauna: giant gorilla 
> 
> Fos: First
> 
> Seken: Second
> 
> Ge smak raun, gyon op nodotaim: Get knocked down, get back up. 
> 
> Hod op: Wait, stop
> 
> *Ganlet: Trial. Slurred from “gautlet.”
> 
> *desney: children’s stories, fairy tales. Slurred from “Disney.”
> 
> Fisa: healer


	5. We built our own house

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa takes a chance, Clarke takes a leap of faith, and Octavia takes on a challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeahhhhh I know it’s been half past forever. There’s been…life stuff that’s too long and boring to get into here. Message me on tumblr if you really want to hear about it. Otherwise…hope you enjoy this one! The angst is over (for now, but of course it’ll be back because this is The 100, after all. What did you think it was, Barney? Get outta here!), and I can promise another chapter of fluff after this one that I’ve got pretty much plotted out! Fluff but also action aaaaaand some smut! Anyway, hope this was worth the wait. Lemme know your thoughts. 
> 
> As always, notes on Trigedasleng at the end. Chapter title is from "Our Own House," MisterWives

Clarke honestly has been trying to keep things calm, but it’s hard to do that when you’re not particularly calm yourself. Octavia is a red-eyed, stumbling mess in the morning and clearly hasn’t slept much at all, the Volunteers are acting like a herd of nervous horses looking for a direction in which to bolt, and Bellamy is a bomb waiting to go off. Indra and Lexa are trying to carry on like there’s nothing wrong at all which is convincing to exactly no one, and it’s starting to wear on even the Grounder contingent of the _shiljus_. Clarke suspects that what Lexa had called the _ganlet_ – the challenge offered to a Second by their mentor, which, if met, will mean they have won their position in the clan as a full warrior – does not usually last this long, and it’s concerning and confusing to the Trikru. Clarke knows that it’s part of the process, but if she didn’t know better she would say that from where she’s standing, it looks like that process is burning down around their ears. And Indra and Lexa seem determined to whistle as it burns.

She knows that’s uncharitable but she can’t help but act a little snappish with Lexa, at least when they’re in private. The Commander wakes with a slight cough, and when she attempts to get out of bed and bustle around with her typical vigor, Clarke pokes her in the chest – _hard_ – until she sits right back down. She doesn’t let Lexa up again until she’s extracted several promises, sworn on various bits of Trigedasleng that sound serious, that she’ll take it easy today, though for all she knows Lexa’s making this shit up on the spot. But it’s the principle of the thing, she tries to tell herself as she shadows the grumpy Commander to breakfast with their _shiljus_. The air is leaden with the sullen weight of the Arkers’ anger. Hardly anyone eats; no one speaks, not even the usually genial Kyro and his brother Kai, who doesn’t seem to have found a situation in which humor isn’t appropriate.

Lexa picks at her food until Clarke prods her to eat, and she can’t help snapping, “I wasn’t aware that you’d become my mother, Clarke.”

“I wouldn’t have to be if you’d act like an adult,” Clarke replies tartly, and after glaring at one another for a moment they return to not eating their breakfast.

In lieu of looking at Clarke, Lexa bitterly observes what her _shiljus_ has become. Before Octavia’s trial had begun they’d all sat at one table, more or less interspersed, and while the conversation had been largely in English she’d been starting to hear it peppered with words and short phrases in Trigedasleng, and not just from Trikru mouths. And, to her surprise and sometimes her annoyance, she’d begun to hear Skaikru slang starting to come from her warriors when she’d least expected it. She’d been so startled to hear Tor growl _“Fuckbucket”_ under his breath when his horse stepped on his toe that she’d tripped over a hay bale and nearly said it herself.

Bellamy and Kyro had been the bridge; they’d become fast friends, sharing a similar dark sense of humor, and the warrior’s extroverted nature has a knack for making the usually serious Bellamy open up. And where Bellamy goes, Lexa sees, the Skaikru follow; Rana and Fox had started to socialize outside of training, and Grant and Kya seemed to be getting along well too, although given how frequently they’d been turning up at training within minutes of one another and both very late, they might have been getting along a little _too_ well. But all of that had been before Octavia’s _ganlet_ had been thrown.

Now, it seems, all of the work that she’s put into melding the _shiljus_ into one unit has come to nothing, gone as surely as if it had been swept away by the floods. They sit at separate tables, speaking to one another, if at all, in terse phrases. All mixed conversation is in the most formal English, and despite her strict orders to the contrary the Trikru speak their own language in close enough proximity to the Sky People to almost be rude. It’s wearing on the Skaikru to be kept in the dark this way, making them short-tempered and suspicious. And given some of the things she’s caught her people saying, their suspicions are not unfounded.

Once they reach the training ground Lexa decides she’s done attempting to enforce harmony where discord reigns, and orders everyone to pair up for hand-to-hand without bothering to regroup them when they inevitably choose partners of their own clan. As always, however, there are two odd men out – and over the last few days, this position has fallen without fail to Indra and Octavia.

Clarke’s observed that Indra is an excellent teacher, instinctively knowing when and how to adjust her skill to match her student’s so that they’re getting challenged, but they don’t give up. Now, though, Clarke can see that Octavia’s getting her ass handed to her. She has to look away before too long or she might not be able to resist the temptation to step in.

She’s paired up deliberately with Bellamy, determined to keep him on task, but she soon finds that that’s not going to happen. Not even fifteen minutes have passed in the session and she’s given up following Lexa’s directives in lieu of arguing with him quietly about why he _shouldn’t just go over there and put a stop to this bullshit and did you forget I don’t take orders from you, Princess –_

“What the hell is going on?” Clarke turns, sees who the shout came from, and closes her eyes, letting out a groan of mingled frustration and relief. Lincoln’s arrived just in time to see Octavia bite the dirt for about the fifth time this morning, but at least it means that that she doesn’t have to keep seeing her best friend getting her ass kicked and trying to find more and more unconvincing reasons why her brother shouldn’t try to stop it.

The second Bellamy catches sight of Lincoln his eyes narrow; a moment later he’s making a beeline for the Grounder warrior and Clarke’s doing her best to keep up with his long strides. The last thing Bellamy needs is an ally; the last thing Lincoln needs is to hear the story from someone who doesn’t know the whole truth. Before either of them can reach him, Lexa barrels past both of them and grabs his arm, hauling him back up the path towards the village and talking in low, rapid-fire Trigedasleng. Clarke’s too relieved even to yell at Lexa about taking it easy.

Bellamy’s quick walk turns into a jog, and Clarke puffs to keep up. Maybe she should be joining Lexa on some of her damn runs, she thinks, before dismissing that idea with a snort. Lexa actually _enjoys_ running; it clears her head and puts her in a better mood than almost anything except sex. The last week or so has been difficult because she’s been under direct orders not to do either, and she’s extra grumpy and snappish. Clarke’s done her best to bear with it, but she sure as hell doesn’t understand it and never will. Running’s about her least favorite thing and she’s really only willing to do it to save her life.

She’s not sure how she has time for all of this to flit through her head – float her, she hasn’t been getting much sleep lately, what with worrying about Octavia and startling at each hitch and rattle in Lexa’s breathing, terrified that it might stop again. When she finally arrives at the edge of the woods, just before the village and only a few steps behind Bellamy (something about which she is perhaps too proud), the Commander’s arguing furiously with Lincoln. Clarke knows her well enough to know that this is what Lexa looks like when she’s trying to keep her temper, to remain cool and calm and rational Heda, but she’s not going to last much longer. Lincoln’s just puffing up bigger and bigger and looking like he’s one wrong word away from revisiting his Reaper days. They’re both loudly whispering in rough, fast Trigedasleng, but when they catch sight of Bellamy and Clarke they switch to English.

“There’s absolutely no reason, Commander, that I should be scouting the _pauna’s_ territory again when I’ve already told you it’s there, and the Chief Hunter confirmed it! This is to get me out of the village so I don’t tell Octavia – which is the right thing to do, by the way –”

“Tell Octavia what?” Bellamy barks, and Lexa whirls to glare at him. Before she can open her mouth, Clarke thumps him and nods at her. Lexa nods back. The message is clear: _I’ve got this. You deal with him._ Clarke would feel rather affectionate about it if she weren’t so damn tired and heartsick.

Lexa turns back to Lincoln. "The safety of the village is of the utmost importance, as I’m sure you’ll agree, especially in its vulnerable state,” she says, enunciating each word like she’s carving it out of granite. “I am sure that you wouldn’t violate our tradition by informing Octavia before her time; you will leave that to her _Fos,_ as the _ganlet_ requires. And I’m _very_ sure that you’re not refusing a direct order from your Commander, especially after I’ve given you my pardon and what amounts to my word to our people that you are to be trusted.”

Lincoln’s eyes widen and his mouth drops open, but nothing comes out of it. Clarke can tell by the set of Lexa’s shoulders and jaw that she knows it was a low blow and she hadn’t wanted to use it, but it works – Lincoln gives her a stiff nod and turns to go.

“Oh, _hell_ no!”

Bellamy shoulders roughly past Clarke to loom over the Commander, though the way her eyes are sparking at him right now makes their height difference seem far less exaggerated than usual. “I don’t recall inviting you to be part of this conversation,” she growls, clearly at the end of her rope.

“You’re sending him away because you don’t want him helping Octavia!”

“I’m sending him away,” Lexa says, through her teeth and through a stream of mental reminders that no, he’s Clarke’s friend, she’s not actually allowed to kill him, “because he found the tracks of another _pauna_ in the woods that we believe is a male recently moved into the territory. Given that the current occupant is female, they may wind up having offspring, and that would be very dangerous for the village. I need him to scout the area and plot out a course of action that will allow us to prevent this from happening. And,” Lexa says, with a flash of dark inspiration, “I’m sending you too. There’s no one better at stealth and tracking than Lincoln; he’ll be able to further your education in that area excellently. And from what I have observed,” she can’t resist scoffing, “you need all the remedial training you can get.” She weathers Clarke’s glare; yes, that was unnecessary, but it was also satisfying, and she’s had about her limit of insubordination before lunchtime.

At this point Bellamy loudly decides that he doesn’t take orders from her, and when Clarke attempts to back Lexa up he declares that he doesn’t take orders from her either. Soon Lincoln joins in and the shouting escalates, and Lexa is snarling that if they don’t feel like taking orders from anyone here they’re free to leave and not return, when Octavia’s voice rings out over the noise.

“Okay, what the _fuck?”_

She’s jogging up the path with enough haste in her step that Lexa strongly suspects that she was not, in fact, given Indra’s approval to leave off training, but the set to her jaw and the hardness in her eye suggest that she had said something rude and done it anyway. In another situation, Lexa might have found that humorous; in fact, she thinks, in another situation she and Octavia might have been good friends. But there’s no sense in imagining other worlds when she has enough to deal with in this one. “Get back to training, _Seken_ ,” she growls, but Octavia ignores her.

“Lincoln, when did you get back? And Bellamy – what’s going on?” the Sky warrior demands, and both men open their mouths to, most likely, ruin the whole situation, when Lexa snaps, “They were just leaving. They have a _pauna_ to hunt. Either that, or they are on their way back to Camp Jaha – _for good.”_

Octavia whirls on her. “Like hell they are! Clarke, what’s going on –”  


But before Clarke can make up her mind one way or the other on whom to side with, Indra comes barreling up the path like a _pauna_ herself. For a moment Clarke can imagine how the general must see them – a bunch of teenagers arguing in the middle of the woods – but then Indra’s crowding into Octavia’s space, her eyes dark and her look furious. Her voice is not the towering roar Clarke had expected, however, but the quiet, deadly hiss of escaping oxygen.

_“Seken,_ you are acting as a disgrace to me. Your actions shame me in the eyes of every warrior in this clan, and I am starting to question the wisdom of taking you on as my apprentice in the first place. It’s becoming clear to me that the Skaikru are nothing more than children, incapable of acting as adults.”

Octavia’s jaw drops at her words; she snaps it closed in seconds, but it remains clenched hard and her eyes are bright and shining with barely suppressed tears. But while Clarke only has eyes for her friend’s pain, Lexa’s watching Indra’s. The general’s head is held high and her back is ramrod straight, but the Commander can see what it costs her to say these things to Octavia. And perhaps she’s imagining it, but she thinks that she sees Indra’s eyes flick momentarily to hers, almost as though she’s asking her Heda to do what she cannot. She continues to upbraid Octavia in tone full of venom, and the Sky warrior continues to take each word like a physical blow, but all Lexa can see is that Indra’s imploring her to put a stop to this.

“ _Hod op,_ Indra,” Lexa calls, feeling an odd sense of disconnect with the words coming out of her mouth, as though she can’t actually believe that they’re hers. She wonders if it’s because she’s breaking a tradition that she is bound, as the Commander, to uphold, or whether she’s keeping true to the spirit of Heda as a guide into new ways, and it’s that spirit’s method of telling her so. “I would speak with Octavia in private.”

The general gives Lexa a very sharp look, but Lexa matches it with one of her own. If she has to hear Indra question her she’ll most likely lose her nerve. The general swallows and then gives a stiff nod. “Octavia, meet me near the hunting ground,” Lexa orders, and is both gratified and annoyed to see that the Sky warrior looks to her _Fos_ – as a _Seken_ should, not a warrior.

“Go, Sky girl,” Indra growls, and Octavia sets off, stiff-legged. Lexa turns back to Bellamy and Lincoln.

“As for you two,” she starts, but then revises her thinking swiftly. She can see the strain that both of them are under as well, to have to watch someone they both love deeply go through such difficulty. She’s been just as insubordinate herself for similar reasons, she knows, and so she works to swallow back her anger. “You will go and scout the _pauna’s_ territory again. Consider it a training exercise, if nothing else. Return by evening and deliver your report to me personally.”

Bellamy’s looks like he’s about to argue, but Lincoln’s watching her keenly with a curious tilt to his head. Lexa doesn’t know what he sees, but he’s always been oddly observant, and his time as a Reaper and an outcast has only made him more so. After a moment, he nods his head to her very subtly, and places his hand on Bellamy’s shoulder, murmuring softly to him. The Sky boy starts to argue, but he also starts to walk with him.

A brief brush of warmth and then Clarke’s murmuring in her ear, “What are you going to do?”

“What I think I have to,” Lexa says, just as low, knowing that Indra’s watching and that she has ears like a fox. “It may not be the correct thing, but I think it is the right thing.” Clarke darts a glance towards the general, as though she knows that those words were not meant entirely for her. Then she gives Lexa a slow nod.

“I trust you.”

Lexa gives her a small smile. “Thank you, Clarke.”

She doesn’t task Indra with resuming command of the training, but instead tells Clarke to let Ryder know that it’s his responsibility. The general accepts this without comment, knowing that if she were to attempt giving orders to the Sky People it would probably start a riot; the two of them set off back down the path in silence. After taking a deep breath, Lexa squares her shoulders and makes her way towards the clearing where hunting parties meet before they leave.

She’s almost convinced herself that this is a terrible idea by the time she makes it to the hunting ground, but the look of open desolation on Octavia’s face when she enters the clearing with a light tread is enough to confirm that she’s made the right decision. The Sky warrior wipes the look off her face and replaces it with a blank mask as soon as she catches sight of Lexa, but being no stranger to containing her emotions, Lexa sees all of her tells: the twitch of muscle in her jaw, the hard brightness of her eyes.

“Before we begin, I need your word that nothing I say to you here will leave this place unless I say it can.”

Octavia’s eyes narrow. “Why’s that? Planning to blow up another village?”

Lexa closes her eyes and swallows, her own jaw tight now. Maybe this _is_ a bad idea, given that Octavia seems to possess the ability to annoy the piss out of her within minutes. “You have my word that no harm will come to you or your people as a result of keeping your silence.”

Octavia looks like she wants to make a snarky comment but apparently she _has_ learned something. She folds her arms over her chest. “Fine. I promise. What did you want to say to me?”

As Lexa moves carefully into the clearing she finds herself subtly circling Octavia, as though they’re preparing to spar. The Sky warrior mirrors Lexa’s movements perfectly, lining herself up so that at no point in Lexa’s circumnavigation does she leave herself open for attack. Much as she might admire the progress Octavia has made in such a short span of time, however, Lexa recognizes that this is not the best way to approach such a sensitive discussion. She squares herself up and sighs, loosening her posture as best she can. Octavia remains in a subtle fighting stance; Lexa can’t say that she blames her, after the week that she’s had.

“Indra is challenging you,” Lexa says carefully. The words feel weighty in her mouth because they are – much of her is screaming that they shouldn’t be spoken, but she forces them out anyway. “She believes that you are ready to be tested to become a full warrior of the Trikru.”

Octavia’s eyes go wide. “Wait, what? No. She thinks I’m stupid and weak. She said as much the other day! Now she thinks I’m ready for a _test?”_

“Yes.”

The Sky warrior’s astonishment quickly turns to fury. “Okay, _seriously?_ She has a fucked-up way of showing that I’m ready for – what kind of test? When?”

The girl looks like she could go on ranting forever until Lexa grits out, “This _is_ the test.” That stops her cold. Lexa tries not to look too satisfied.

“What do you mean?” Octavia says slowly.

“It’s the penultimate test we give our warriors,” Lexa explains, “and perhaps the most important: it tests their spirits. You have learned to fight but you have also learned to be obedient, to take orders from someone who knows better than you; now you are being called to demonstrate that you can take initiative and stand up for yourself.”

“And – what? Indra’s trying to get me to do that by grinding my face into the dirt?” Octavia bursts out. Lexa takes another deep and calming breath, reminding herself that Octavia’s under a lot of strain right now, and she needs to wait for at least one more outburst before killing her or she won’t be able to believably tell Clarke that she was provoked beyond endurance.

“She’s hoping that it will force you to rise up from the ground and fight for your right to stand beside her as her equal,” Lexa says. “It’s called the _ganlet_. That means challenge in your tongue. You must meet her challenge by issuing one of your own.”

Octavia’s jaw drops. “Wait…I have to _fight Indra?_ But there’s no way I can win!”

“She would not have challenged you if she didn’t think you could.”

Lexa had meant her words to be comforting, or at least to clear away the fog of confusion, but Octavia still looks desolate. Cautiously, as though she’s approaching a spooked horse, Lexa steps closer. “In a fight to the death, I doubt you could beat her. There are few who could – I’m likely not one of them.” That forces a short huff of laughter out of the Sky warrior, which Lexa takes as a good sign. “But this is not a fight to the death. This is a fight to prove yourself in the eyes of your mentor and of your clan – of what will be your clan. The day you accept Indra’s challenge you will be accounted one of us in full.”

Octavia’s staring at her, and her face, usually closed and hardened, is so open and full of naked hope that Lexa’s throat closes up. She remembers what Clarke has told her about Octavia – how the Sky warrior’s birth was itself a criminal act, and how she spent the first sixteen years of her life in hiding before being caught and imprisoned. She has never belonged, never truly felt a part of something – until now. Until Indra reached out and offered her a possibility of life among the Trikru – not a life of exile with Lincoln, or a life with the Sky People where the circumstances of her birth would no longer be criminalized but everyone around her would remember when they were. No, Indra’s offering her a chance at being a full member of the clan, and it’s just within her grasp – if she can only take it. Lexa can see how much the Sky girl wants it – she just needs one last push.

“ _Taim yu ste gyon au thru hoplas, yu beda ste gyon au.”_

Lexa doesn’t offer a translation – the Sky warrior needs to derive her own meaning from it. “A great commander from long before the war said that once, and it’s something our people have held to through the years. It’s also the signifier of the _ganlet_.” She watches as Octavia blinks, trying to parse the saying.

It’s something she’s been turning over and over in her mind lately, as she’s watched the Sky warrior’s progress and her struggles. Octavia is a bridge between sky and ground, even more so than Clarke. Her relationship with Lincoln, as well as Lexa’s with Clarke, anchors the bridge to either side, but Octavia has the potential to become Trigedakru in a way that Clarke, who was born feeling like she _belonged_ on the Ark, never will. If Octavia can meet this challenge and overcome it, she can show those from the Ark and those from the ground that it’s possible to cross that bridge. It will become solid, a reality, instead of a vague hope and a concept.

Lexa lets Octavia alone, watching her as she’s been told. When she sees some light of understanding come to life in her eyes, Lexa says, “We should be going back soon. Your people will think I’ve taken you out into the forest to kill you.”

Octavia gives her a sharp look and Lexa barks out a laugh, but sobers quickly. There’s something set to the Sky warrior’s face and posture, something grim and determined. The light of challenge has returned to her eyes, and she doesn’t move like one condemned, but one preparing to face battle. Lexa sees this and feels the last of her doubt fall away. This was the right choice.

“Fight well, Octavia of the Sky People.” Octavia nods once and turns to leave the clearing. After a steadying breath Lexa follows, feeling like she’s just run a very hard race.

When they arrive back at the training ground the warriors are at lunch. Lexa’s not hungry and Octavia looks too green to be much interested in food, so they wait. Octavia paces like a caged hunting cat; Lexa settles on a rock and matches its stillness.

They don’t have long to wait before the two groups of fighters return, the Trikru mockingly loud and raucous and the Skaikru silent and murderous. When Indra enters the clearing Lexa stands; Octavia stops pacing. The suddenness of their movements brings both parties to a halt immediately. Indra places a hand on her sword.

“I challenge you, Indra kom Trikru,” Octavia says, her voice only wavering a bit as it rings across the training ground. “I challenge you for the right to call myself _Okteivia, gona kom Trikru._ ”

Indra nods shortly and draws her sword; after a moment Octavia follows suit. The general looks stone-faced as usual, but Lexa can see that she’s struggling to keep her emotions in check.

“Heda, _will you judge this bout?”_ Indra says in Trigedasleng.

Lexa nods. “ _Name your challenge.”_

Indra turns to face Octavia, who’s standing at the other end of the ring, trying very hard not to shake. Lexa feels for her – she remembers when she’d been at the other end of that ring, facing down Anya and sure that she was going to die. The set to Octavia’s jaw tells her that the Sky warrior feels much the same as she did that day: like she’s more prepared to face death than the dishonor of failing this test.

“ _Three strikes to win.”_

Lexa raises her chin in acknowledgement. The test will showcase what is arguably Octavia’s greatest strength: her endurance. Indra’s fast as a snake and hits twice as hard; the Sky warrior will have to be quick to get in a blow, and quicker still to avoid taking too many herself. But her courage will go a long way here: she’s proven willing to risk injury to herself in order to strike down her enemy. This test won’t be easy, Lexa thinks, but it’s one that Octavia can win.

“Okteivia, _do you understand the terms?”_ Lexa says. The Sky warrior nods once, keeping her eyes fixed on her mentor. The Commander crosses her arms over her chest. “Stot au.”

Lexa knows that the Octavia she had first met would have launched herself at Indra with no hesitation, and likely wound up with a face full of dirt. This Octavia, however, drops into a wary-eyed protective stance and begins to circle her mentor, watching, for her opening. Indra matches her step for step, her lips pressed tightly together; she looks like she’s frowning but Lexa would be prepared to make a very large bet that she’s biting her tongue over words of approval.

A brief press of warmth at her side is the only thing that heralds Clarke’s arrival. “Is this it?” she says, and when Lexa nods she grumbles, “’Bout time.” The Commander can’t help but huff out a laugh.

Clarke only has the momentary warning of Lexa’s body tensing against her side before there’s a flicker of movement, and suddenly Octavia and Indra are hacking vigorously at one another, swords clashing almost too fast to see. In another moment it’s over and they’ve broken apart to resume their circling. Clarke leans in, eyes searching frantically over first Octavia to see if she’s been hurt, and then Indra to see if her friend got a hit in, but from what she can tell neither of them have been marked. Octavia’s started to breathe more quickly; Indra looks like she’s going for a stroll in the woods.

They come together, blades flickering like tongues of flame, two more times before Clarke realizes that Octavia’s just been testing Indra – _this_ is when the real fight starts. All of a sudden there’s scarcely an inch of space between them as they whirl and dodge, swords moving almost too fast to see and yet they’re evading one another’s strikes like it’s a carefully choreographed dance. Clarke finds herself leaning further and further in until she hears Lexa’s low voice in her ear – “Breathe, Clarke” – and realizes that she hasn’t been.

A roar goes up from the assembled Grounders and Octavia and Indra spring apart to resume circling. Clarke’s momentarily gratified to see that Indra’s now panting heavily before she realizes what had so excited the warriors, and what had made them leave off battering at one another: a fresh line of blood stretches across Octavia’s cheek. She reaches up to wipe it off with her sleeve in such a classically Octavia gesture that Clarke can’t help but grin, even as her heart hurts for her friend. They both look to Lexa, who gives a slow nod. “ _Won kom Indra,”_ she says in a carrying voice.

Octavia doesn’t wait for Lexa to tell them to resume; she launches herself at Indra again and again. But, Clarke realizes after watching for a minute, it’s not without strategy: her sword is constantly probing, searching for weak points in Indra’s defenses, and it seems impossible that she won’t find one at the speed that she’s moving. Yet her mentor parries every strike, and Clarke can see a look of fury and frustration growing on Indra’s face until the general can’t keep from bursting out, “This is not a race, Sky girl; you need to learn patience, not speed.”

Octavia responds with a brutally fast strike, hard enough to make Indra grunt as she parries. “ _Yu no ste ain ticha nou mou, Fos,”_ she growls. “ _Nou mou tichon.”_

In the time that it takes Clarke to parse the words Indra lashes out, and Clarke’s certain she’s going to see another wound on Octavia, but the Sky warrior manages to spin away just in time. And, she realizes, more than that: Octavia’s found her opening. When they part once more, there’s a line of red seeping sluggishly down Indra’s right bicep. She can’t help it: she pumps her fist in the air and shouts, “Yes!” Lexa shushes her, pulling her arm down, but she can see a grin twitching at the Commander’s lips. With a sudden pang she realizes that Lexa’s rooting for Octavia too. The thought makes her heart ache with warmth, and she leans over to plant a kiss on Lexa’s cheek, enjoying the blush it leaves behind.

The test resumes, but it’s different now; Octavia seems to have recovered her confidence, and they fight as equals. Indra has the weight of experience and years of training, as well as the wiliness and craft that’s kept her alive throughout, but she’s managed to impart some of that to Octavia, and the Sky warrior is young, fresh, and innovative. She keeps her mentor on her toes, trying one thing after another, until she finds another chance – a stutter-step leaves Indra overextended on one side and Octavia twists herself around fluidly like a river otter to set her shoulder against the general’s and heave. Indra’s thrown momentarily off balance and the crowd lets out a collective gasp. The warrior recovers in time to parry Octavia’s strike with her forearm. She catches most of it on her bracer, but the blade slices through to leave her bleeding.

This time Clarke doesn’t celebrate – this wound’s dripping a lot more than the first, and while they’re moving too fast for her to get a good look at it she’s fairly certain that it’s going to need stitches. She wants to ask Lexa to stop the fight so she can at least make certain that Indra doesn’t bleed out, but one look at the Commander’s face tells her that’s not happening. The general’s face is set in pained determination as she goes after Octavia with renewed ferocity, the two of them whirling like dervishes. She can see that her friend is concerned about her mentor, her eyes on Indra’s wound more often than they should be. She wants to tell her to be careful, to keep her head in the fight, but the rest of the crowd has gone very quiet. All she can do is bite her lip and clench her fists and hope. _Just one more. Come on, Octavia, just one more hit._

Lexa’s eyes flicker over the fighters, following each minute movement of their swords, a language she can read but Clarke can’t yet. She almost finds it more informative to watch the Commander’s face – her jaw tightens as the moment gets tense, as one or the other gets close to landing a blow; her lips press together at the closest of calls, and part slightly to let out a soft breath when they break apart to circle one another, panting like windblown horses.

They come together again and are grappling, and Clarke’s heart is in her throat. She can see the tendons on Octavia’s and Indra’s necks standing out as they press their swords together, struggling to push the other one off and land a blow in return. Octavia manages to make Indra break first, and Clarke only just manages to keep a shout of victory from bursting out of her mouth. It’s a good thing, too, because it turns out that Indra had let her gain that ground – so that she can whip her sword around and drive it into the soft flesh under Octavia’s knee.

Octavia drops and Clarke has to bite her lips to keep from begging Lexa to stop the fight. She can see blood seeping sluggishly through the torn fabric of her friend’s pants, and knows that the wound has the potential to be very bad. What if Indra severed a tendon? Her mother might have been able to patch that up on the Ark but here on the ground, Octavia might never walk again unaided. Clarke can only watch as Octavia plants her sword in the dirt and starts struggling to her feet, her face set in pain, while Indra slowly strolls forward, blade flicking back and forth like a nervous cat’s tail, to deliver the final blow.

“You were too slow, _Seken,”_ Indra says, voice heavy with regret, “and too reckless. You did not see my ruse, and it has cost you this trial. You will try again one day, but for now, _yu gonplei ste odon.”_ She raises her blade and Clarke has to look away, burying her face in Lexa’s shoulder; she can’t see this happen, can’t see the death of Octavia’s dreaming and wishing and hard work. She can’t quite understand why she hears a shout a second later; surely they’re not cheering for Octavia’s defeat?

But then she hears Lexa softly hiss “ _Yes!”_ and she jerks her head up to see Octavia standing over a downed Indra, her sword to her mentor’s throat. There’s pain creasing the Sky warrior’s face, but it’s nothing compared to the triumph.

_“Ai gonplei nou ste odon nowe,”_ she says roughly, carefully drawing a very thin line of red down the column of Indra’s throat with the tip of her sword. “Do you yield, _Indra kom Trikru?”_

_“Yun sparnes, Okteivia, gona kom Trigedakru,”_ Indra says, and for all that her words are heavy and labored with pain, there’s joy in them also.

Clarke doesn’t get all of the words, but she doesn’t need to. The way the Trikru rush forward, cheering, to lift Octavia on their shoulders; the way they set up a chant of _“Gona! Gona! Gona!”;_ and the way Lexa can’t keep the grin off her face as she joins them tells Clarke all she needs to know. She feels a couple of tears roll down her cheeks before she notices the Skaikru contingent gaping, open-mouthed, at the spectacle, and trots over to explain what just happened.

Yet she can’t help but think as she hastens to clarify and sees understanding dawn on the faces of her friends, as she watches them rush to join the warriors’ chanting mob, as she makes Lexa finally shut them down so they can get Indra and Octavia to Nyko’s hut, that the two people who will be the happiest for this moment aren’t here. Lincoln and Bellamy have yet to return from their scouting mission, and while Clarke wills them to hurry back (strongly suspecting that they saw their orders for the bullshit they were and have spent the last few hours chucking stones at the river snakes) she can’t help but grin to herself as she imagines the changed world they will return to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigedasleng
> 
> *means I made shit up
> 
> *shiljus: Bloodguard
> 
> *ganlet: challenge
> 
> *pauna: giant murderous motherfucking gorilla
> 
> Fos: First, a mentor to a warrior-in-training
> 
> Seken: Second, a warrior’s apprentice
> 
> *Taim yu ste gyon au thru hoplas, yu beda ste gyon au: First person to figure out what this means gets a cookie ;P
> 
> gona kom Trikru: warrior of the Tree Clan
> 
> Stot au: begin, from “start out”
> 
> Won kom Indra: One for Indra
> 
> Yu no ste ain ticha nou mou, Fos. Nou mou tichon*: You are not my teacher any longer, First. No more lessons*.
> 
> Yu gonplei ste odon: Your fight is over.
> 
> Ai gonplei ste odon nowe: My fight is never over.
> 
> Yun sparnes*, Okteivia, gona kom Trigedakru: Your mercy, Octavia, warrior of the Tree Clan


	6. Different colors (we carry each other)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end of Octavia's trials necessitates a formal celebration, but the Arkers and their Grounder friends make plans for a much less formal one to follow - and Party Animal Clarke Griffin meets Commander Wallflower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah so...lengthy hiatus...I don't even know. Work=poop but hopefully I will be quitting soon and moving on to greener (?) pastures. In the meantime, I'm hoping to be posting shorter chapters, but more of them. Stay tuned.
> 
> As per usual, notes on Trigedasleng at the end.

“It’s gonna hurt, isn’t it,” Octavia says as she stares at the needle, currently a brilliant shade of orange after having been pulled from a sterilizing fire.

“Probably,” Raven says conversationally. “Hey, O, did you know that your eyes are about the size of Wick’s –"

“That is literally the biggest needle I’ve ever seen in my life,” Harper says, “and I had my bone marrow sucked out of my thigh by the Mountain Men.”

All of the Arkers in the tattoo artist’s hut wince simultaneously, both at the comment and at the needle. “That has to go in my skin,” Octavia says after a beat, as though she’s just realizing it for the first time.

“Hey, you’re the one who wanted to be a _gona_ ,” Clarke says, clapping Octavia on her (uninjured) shoulder a little harder than is strictly necessary. “You’re not gonna miss out on that ‘cause you don’t have the balls to get the stamp on that transfer pass, are you?”

Octavia groans and Raven and Harper snicker, and it takes them a moment to realize that Nyko, Indra, and Dolben, the _inkskapa_ , are staring at them, completely nonplussed. Clarke feels her face heating up and hastens to say, “It’s an Ark thing,” just as Raven and Harper are tripping over each other trying to explain what a transfer pass was. Clarke thinks Ryder’s eyebrows might have finally managed to merge in confusion if Lexa doesn’t arrive just then, all briskness and wind and what passes for joviality with her.

“Dolben, are we finished? The scouts should be back soon and I’m sure Lincoln will want to hear the good news.”

“A moment, Heda,” the bearded man grunts, and reaches for the abandoned needle to sterilize it again. Octavia looks green.

Lexa’s eyes narrow as she takes in the scene, and then a wicked smirk begins to curl at the corners of her mouth. Clarke knows that look and what it heralds and opens her mouth to say something, anything, to head Lexa off before she actually manages to make Octavia faint, but then Indra growls, “Not another word, Heda, or I will tell them what happened when you got your first.”

The grin drops off Lexa’s face instantly and she crosses her arms over her chest. “What are you waiting for, Dolben? _Ink em op_.”

It had turned out that the moment Octavia had announced her intention to fight Indra, Jasper had gone running for the radio and spent the rest of the fight announcing it like it was a boxing tape from Old Earth. When Clarke went to deliver the news of the Sky warrior’s win to those in the radio room, she had nearly had her eardrums blown by the whooping and hollering that crackled back at her. She had finally managed to get across to them that there would be a feast to celebrate Octavia’s victory at sundown the next day and that they were all invited before retreating to the darkness of Lexa’s tent to nurse a headache.

Raven, Harper, and several other Delinquents had arrived far too early on horseback the next morning, bringing news that there was a slower party on foot making their way to Tondc too. They would be there by midafternoon, but they had wanted to get here earlier for moral support (which Clarke suspected was Raven for mocking Octavia). The _pauna_ scouting party was supposed to be back around that time too, and Octavia had wanted to wait for them to get back, but then Lexa had made some crack about her needing Lincoln to hold her hand and she had marched straight into the _inkskapa’s_ hut and whipped her shirt off.

Now the warrior in question is squaring her shoulders and gripping the back of her chair with white-knuckled determination. “Let’s do this.”

Octavia manages to avoid passing out during the process, but when she stands from her chair, a stylized panther – chosen for her by her First, as tradition demanded, for its patient ferocity and stealth – stalking across her shoulders, it’s a near thing. Lexa catches her elbow before she can wobble too far over, however, and a look of gratefulness passes between them that Clarke suspects comes from more than just preventing her fall.

As they leave the hut, a shout comes up from the direction of the woods, and Octavia’s off and running before Clarke’s even halfway through yelling at her to put on her shirt and slow down, she just got sliced to ribbons and she’s going to pull a stitch. She takes a running leap into Lincoln’s arm and is kissing him through a combination of laughter and tears, which Clarke suspects is the product of weeks of strain and heartache finally breaking. She can’t help the grin that comes to her at the sight, and at Lexa’s quiet chuckle as she draws even with Clarke.

“ _Mounin houm!”_ the Commander calls when Octavia pauses kissing Lincoln to draw breath. It takes another couple of minutes before Lincoln can convince Octavia to clamber off of him and turn to punch Bellamy for his progressively more graphic fake-gagging.

“I’ll see you back at the tent, _hodnes,_ ”Lincoln says to Octavia, squeezing her a final time with the arm he has wrapped around her waist. Octavia turns to go, but looks back over her shoulder at him with a glint in her eye.

“Don’t keep me waiting long,” the _skaigona_ says. “I have something to show you.”

This time Lexa joins Bellamy in the fake-barfing and only stops when Clarke jabs her in her still-tender ribs.

Now that Octavia and Lincoln’s not-so-private moment is over, they draw nearer to the scouts, and Lexa’s expression quickly turns serious. “Well, what did you see?”

Lincoln and Bellamy are normally difficult to ruffle, so it catches Clarke’s attention instantly when they both start squirming; Bellamy even looks a little green. When they don’t respond immediately, Lexa raises an eyebrow, and Lincoln says hoarsely, “There were two _pauna_ there, Commander, like we thought.”

Lexa’s other eyebrow rises when the warrior doesn’t go on. “And have they encountered each other in the territory yet? Do they look like they’re fighting for it, or…”

“Definitely not,” Bellamy mumbles, suddenly unable to meet either of their eyes. If Lexa had been anyone other than she is, her face would have split into a wicked grin; as it is, Clarke recognizes the glint in her eyes and rolls her own.

“And what were they doing?”

“They were…” But Lincoln can’t finish his sentence and Bellamy seems to have found a patch of dirt that desperately needs scuffing with his toe. Lexa lets the silence drag on and on and Clarke’s about to attempt to rescue her friends before Bellamy finally says, rather delicately, “Mating,” at the same time that Lexa offers gleefully, “ _Emo don jok choda op_?”

Clarke’s Trigedasleng isn’t the best but Lexa had taught her all of the swears during her first week at Tondc (largely because she employed them during sex, and Clarke had tickled her until she’d told her what they meant), and she can figure out more or less that Lexa deserves another jab to the ribs, which she provides. It’s a lot gentler than it could have been, though, because Lexa just bursts out laughing, and all of a sudden there’s no room in Clarke to be mad.

“ _Gyon au,”_ the Commander says to the two of them. “And try to get Octavia to her own feast on time.”

Clarke can’t be sure, but she thinks that she can see Lincoln blushing through the dirt and paint on his face. Bellamy just rolls his eyes and strides off, muttering something about showers. Lexa turns to Clarke, preparing to make some crack about how they can’t even handle the sight of animals mating without needing to go off and take a cold bath, when she notices the Sky Girl shivering. “Cold, Clarke?”

She nods, rubbing at her own arms, before Lexa brushes her hands aside and takes over. It doesn’t take long before she’s feeling warmer, and she gives Lexa a grateful smile that doesn’t last long. “I’ve been meaning to talk with you about that, actually. It’s been getting colder, and most of my people don’t even have what I do, in terms of warm clothing.” She can’t help a guilty internal wince at how long it’s slipped her mind, but it’s been easy to forget, what with spending every two weeks with a warm bed and an even warmer Lexa to look forward to every night. But the halls of the Ark are cold metal and drafty besides, no matter how many rivets Raven puts in. They need to figure out some way to keep warm, and some method of permanent shelter.

“We will,” Lexa says, with a bit of strain in her voice, and she can’t keep herself from glancing towards the feasting ground, where the scent of cooking is wafting, and where instruments are torturing themselves into tune. “I promise we will, but Clarke –”

Lexa’s eyes are on the celebratory preparations, but Clarke can’t take her eyes off Lexa. She looks so happy, and relieved, and tired, but overall _lighter_ than Clarke thinks she’s ever seen her. Never has the burden of Heda lain so lightly over Lexa’s shoulders, and Clarke doesn’t have the heart to press it down again.

“I know,” she says, smiling up at Lexa, and takes her hand, running her thumb across warm, calloused knuckles. “It’s gonna start soon and we should probably get some food before Raven and Jasper eat it all. And I think you promised last time that you were gonna teach me how to dance, right?”

Lexa snorts, but begins to lead her towards where the food is being prepared anyway. “I don’t think so. I’m not who you should ask about that, anyway; I’m a terrible dancer.”

“Oh yeah?” Clarke says, eyes bright and teasing. “I find that hard to believe. The great Commander can win a hundred battles but she can’t even give me one little dance?”

It turns out that Lexa is not, in fact, a terrible dancer; her grace in battle transfers easily to the dance floor that the feasting ground becomes after the food has been cleared away. The light in her eyes and the quickness in her steps as she leads her people in a fast-paced tune are enough to take Clarke’s breath away, and she thinks she could be content to watch the Commander dance all night – but Lexa has other ideas. Laughing, her cheeks flushed with wine and the chill of the air, she tugs Clarke up from where she sits (with plenty of protesting). After some trial and a lot of error, she manages to teach Clarke enough of the basic steps so that they can both make fools of themselves in front of the entire village, and most of the Ark besides. As Lexa slumps back onto her throne, head spinning and buzzing all at once and Clarke a laughing, happy mess beside her, she can’t bring herself to regret it. She’d be willing to do it a thousand times as long as it puts that look on Clarke’s face, spins that laughter out of her throat.

The night grows hazy with smoke from the bonfires and the smoky taste of Trikru whiskey, which Lexa is dimly aware that she’s probably had too much of, but is enjoying herself too much to care. And Clarke…Clarke is also enjoying herself, possibly a little too much. At some point between her fourth cup and her fifth, she leans over a little too far to duel with Octavia’s drumstick, and spills directly into Lexa’s lap. She’s a mess of limbs and giggling and sneaky hands, and Lexa takes far too long in removing her – in part because she’s not quite certain of her own body, and in part because she doesn’t particularly want to. The Sky Girl’s curves pressed against her, her heady scent in Lexa’s nose, her voice murmuring low in Lexa’s ear things that make her blush and throb and _want_ – it’s almost enough to make her forget that she’s Heda and that the eyes of her people, and Clarke’s are upon them.

The twin glares she catches from Abby and Indra bring her back to herself, however, and so she stands (Clarke propped against her and giggling as she tries to catch Lexa’s ear between her teeth) and then chokes out a few barely intelligible phrases to the effect of wishing everyone a restful night. The last few words come out of her in a squeak, because Clarke’s hand has found her ass and squeezed. With a growl, she scoops the Sky Girl into her arms – eliciting a delighted squeal, and a wolf-whistle from somewhere in the crowd – and carries her back to the tent. Clarke’s asleep before she’s even hit the furs.

* * *

 

When Clarke wakes, her head is pounding like she spent the night listening to bombs going off. She opens her eyes, thinking to look for some water - one or the other of them usually has the foresight to keep a pitcher handy on nights when they’ve been imbibing - but as soon as she does she wishes she hadn’t. Light stabs at her through the flap of the tent, and she throws the furs over her head with a loud groan.

A quiet snicker makes her open them to glare at Lexa, who’s looking down at her with a slight smirk. The sight of the Commander’s face makes Clarke cringe, remembering the events of the previous night in snippets - she’d gone way, _way_ overboard with the moonshine but she had just been so relieved, and she’d just wanted to take advantage of a night when there was no one to save or mourn and she could just _relax._ Of course, that had led to, if she remembered right, coming onto Lexa in full view of her mother and everybody and then…fallen asleep.

Clarke’s glare drops off her face and she burrows under the covers again, muffling her groan. There’s a chuckle from above her, but there’s more affection in it than annoyance. That and the sound of liquid being poured into a cup is enough to coax Clarke to peek back out again. She accepts the water from Lexa and gulps it down gratefully, drawing out her last few sips so she can think of how to approach things.

Lexa spares her the indignity. “I met someone very interesting last night.”

Clarke’s just sober enough to catch the teasing in her tone and croak, “Oh yeah?”

“Yes. Octavia informed me that she only appears on very special occasions, and that she's known as _Party Animal Clarke Griffin,_ ” Lexa says. Clarke can't see the smirk on Lexa's face, but it's louder than ever in her voice.

It’s a very gentle rebuke but Clarke cringes again as Lexa gets out of bed and starts rummaging around the tent. She knows she wasn’t in full control of her faculties at the time, but she also knows that she has a responsibility not to get out of hand. She’d put their entire diplomatic situation in jeopardy, as well as Lexa’s credibility and her own. And her mom…

“My mom’s gonna kill me,” Clarke groans, slapping a hand to her forehead.

“She will not,” Lexa says firmly, rummaging in one of her chests. Clarke wants to ask what she’s looking for, but she wants to know how Lexa knows this more, so she keeps her mouth shut. “I spoke with the Chancellor of the Skaikru this morning, before she left with her delegation – yes, they’re gone. Your mother expressed a desire to say goodbye to you but I, ah, told her I wasn’t sure whether you would be…presentable.” Clarke groans again. “She eventually decided that since you would be traveling to Camp Jaha within the week, you could have a conversation about your behavior then.”

Clarke makes a face. “Okay, so she’s gonna kill me, but you’ve bought me some time.”

“I will visit the armorers before you go and make certain that you are fully protected,” Lexa says, sounding entirely serious, but there’s a glint of mirth in her eye as she sits in a chair near the foot of the bed to put on her boots. Clarke sighs exasperatedly at her, then frowns at the fingers flying over the laces. The sight forcibly reminds her of her hands clumsily tugging at Lexa’s belt as she attempted to remove her own boots last night, and by the time she’s finished blushing Lexa’s finished dressing.

“Where are you going, anyway?” she says as the Commander stands, drawing on a light jacket. To her surprise, Lexa cracks a big, nasty grin.

“My seasoned warriors know that I have a certain tradition after a festival of any particular size,” she says, stowing her dagger in its sheath on her belt. “There is a belief among us that the best way to hasten alcohol’s removal from one’s body is to sweat it out, and so I will be sending the _shiljus_ on a run this morning to make sure that they are fit for this afternoon’s training.”

Clarke rolls her eyes at Lexa’s gleeful expression. “Didn’t exactly take you for the vindictive type, Commander.”

“Yes, well,” Lexa says, pausing by the tent flap and folding her arms over her chest as she regards Clarke. “ _Taim yu drag raun, taim yu ge ban au.”_

Clarke doesn’t know exactly what that means, but she’s pretty sure she has an idea. She’s also sure that her friends in the _shiljus_ are _not_ going to be ready for whatever Lexa’s planning to dish out. Surprisingly – since she’s not sure she still has a brain, let alone one capable of inspired thought – she has an idea about what she can do to alleviate the situation. “Why don’t you go with them?”

Lexa’s about to make her exit, but Clarke’s words stop her short. She turns slowly, like she can’t be entirely sure she heard Clarke right. The Sky Girl nods encouragingly. “Yeah, you heard me right. I know it’s been killing you not to be able to go for runs, but by now it probably won’t kill you to try one.” _And_ , she thinks, _maybe if you’re not at full strength you won’t be able to kill everybody else with hangovers._

Lexa bursts into a brilliant grin that Clarke can’t help but return. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she says, unable to resist getting up and tottering her way over to the tent flap to wrap her arms around Lexa’s waist. “You just have to promise me to take it easy and be careful and listen to your breathing, and to stop the minute something feels wrong.” The Commander’s mouth dips in what looks like the beginnings of a pout, but then Clarke delivers the coup de grace; shifting one hand a little lower, she grabs Lexa’s ass hard enough to make her suck in a breath and murmurs, “And if you’re good, I might decide you’re cleared for another type of activity this evening.”

Lexa nips at her neck before murmuring, “I’m going to hold you to that.”

“As long as that’s not the only place you hold me to.”

She’s rewarded with a low growl and wandering hands and a mouth hot against her throat, and she knows that if she doesn’t make Lexa go they’re never going to get out of bed today. And at least one of them needs to look like she has her shit together. “After,” she says, pushing Lexa away. “You haven’t earned it yet.”

Lexa grumbles a bit, but she’s too eager to get out into the sunshine to protest for long. Clarke watches her set off up the path, slowly at first but gaining speed and confidence as her strides lengthen, until she’s loping gracefully out of sight. Once she’s gone, Clarke sags back against one of the tent’s poles, sighing. “All right, who do I have to barf on to get some breakfast around here?”

* * *

 

Much as she would prefer to be slowly tortured to death rather than admit it, Lexa is forced to concede during the run that Clarke may have had a point, regarding taking things slow. She makes certain that she’s always leading as they make their way through the hidden paths and trails of the forest that she knows like the veins beneath her skin, and fights valiantly not to show any signs of fatigue, even going so far as to jog backwards at times and taunt her _shiljus_ about their haggard faces and leaden steps. She’s fairly certain that everyone except Ryder and Indra were fooled, but she’s forced to turn back for the village long before she would have preferred.

Yet as she lopes up the path through the trees, the slowly rising roofs of Tondc swinging into sight in the clear afternoon air, she finds that she cannot be too disappointed. There’s a slow swelling feeling in her chest, like it’s only now reinflating after her drowning; she is here and alive, the breath moving well through her lungs and her body working fluidly and well, promising to get better. That she might recover, that she might return to her full strength and take pleasure in its expression again is quite an ordinary thing and she can’t quite put words to why it makes her so happy, but she finds herself laughing and joking with her warriors as they make their way to where the afternoon meal has been laid out for them. She catches a few surprised glances being thrown her way and knows it’s because they are unused to seeing her as anything other than the stern, reserved Heda, but she can’t bring herself to properly care.

Shortly after the _shiljus_ has settled to its habitual demolition of the banquet table, the Volunteers and a few other Skaikru Lexa doesn’t recognize begin trickling down the path, calling out to their friends among the warriors. Clarke is among them, talking animatedly with the mechanic Raven, whom Lexa has asked to look at the village’s drainage systems and report on any upgrades they might require. When she catches Lexa’s gaze she breaks off after saying goodbye to her friend and makes her way over to the high table with a bounce in her step. She makes a snatch for Lexa’s food, abandoned once she caught sight of her Sky Girl; Lexa only just manages to block her, and give her a false frown. “There’s plenty of food left; you can get your own.”

“Not really,” Clarke says, smirking as she makes another attempt. “You guys did a pretty good job on it.”

“Yes, well, some of us actually did work this morning, instead of sitting around seeing how long it takes to reduce various twigs to ashes.”

“We _so_ worked, and you know it! We finished that pigpen along the south wall and started another, and you know what, you should give me that,” Clarke says, pouting exaggeratedly as Lexa thwarts her yet again. The Commander can’t quite hold in her grin as Clarke practically launches herself against her, lunch quickly forgotten as her hands seek out Lexa’s ticklish spots and she’s hard put to defend herself. It’s not long before a swift tug makes Clarke collapse against her chest, giggling through her half-hearted protests; Lexa ignores her and leans up to press a swift, messy kiss to her lips, which her Sky Girl gently returns.

“That’s _gross_ ,” Octavia says loudly (and, Lexa presumes, facetiously, considering how many times she’s caught the Sky warrior suckered to Lincoln like she’s attempting to merge with him at the lips) from the other end of the table, and they break apart, but for once Lexa’s not thinking about the eyes on them, about what the others must think of a Commander who would behave this way in public. She allows this moment to be simply about Clarke’s eyes locked with hers, her weight in Lexa’s lap, her hands on Lexa’s shoulders and in her hair.

Clarke breaks the moment, albeit gently, by climbing out of Lexa’s lap and into the chair next to her. After she’s demolished the rest of Lexa’s food, she says, “So there’s gonna be a party tonight, with the rest of the Skaikru who’ve stayed here, before they go back to the Ark tomorrow.”

“Ah,” Lexa says, busying herself with picking at a knot in the wood of the table. The silence stretches expectantly, but she has no idea what Clarke wants her to say, and for some reason she can’t quite bring herself to ask, can’t bring herself to meet Clarke’s eyes, in fact. She’s never begrudged her time with her friends; Clarke tends to return from it drunk and giggling and _happy._ She had just thought…well, if she’s being honest with herself (and she can hear Anya’s voice in her head, telling her that there is no place in a Commander for self-deception), she had thought, given their conversation that morning, that she would have Clarke to herself for tonight. It makes sense, of course, that she’d want to spend time with her friends before they left – the ones still here after Octavia’s celebration are those who don’t usually make the trip, and thus Clarke wouldn’t get to see them as often. She’s midway through chastising herself for her selfish possessiveness when Clarke’s hand closes over her fidgeting one, forcing it to still.

“You’ll be there, right?”

Lexa’s head jerks up and she nearly stutters out her disbelief before she remembers herself, forces herself to slow down. Something about Clarke makes her forget, at least momentarily, that she is Heda, that she was born to command, that she has the soul of a leader with half a hundred lives within her. She’s quite torn between hating the Sky Girl and loving her for it.

“I…well, I had assumed that this was a private – or, not private, but reserved for your people, and as such –”

“Nope,” Clarke says, a little too nonchalantly, as though she’s attempting to forcibly change Lexa’s mood. There’s a brief sharp sting of affection in her chest at the notion. “The whole _shiljus_ is coming, and some of the villagers that the Volunteers have been working with, so they can get to know the people we’ve been talking about for months. Why wouldn’t you be invited?”

Lexa’s tongue feels thick in her mouth, and when she finally manages to get words out, they’re awkwardly formal. “My presence is often the catalyst for official festivities, but has, in the past, put a damper on unofficial ones. I did not want my being there to affect your ability to enjoy your friends’ presence, and they yours. In addition, I –”

She could probably have rambled forever if Clarke’s hand hadn’t closed over hers again. “I want you there,” Clarke says, enunciating each word slowly like she’s speaking to a child. For some reason, Lexa doesn’t mind. “All right? So…you gonna come?”

Lexa swallows, tightens her jaw, flexes her fist under Clarke’s fingers, but ultimately there really isn’t anything she can do but nod her assent. And that’s how the Commander of the Twelve Clans ends up pacing with quick, nervous steps down the path to the campground that evening, on the way to her first Skaikru party. Clarke’s hand in hers is the only thing that keeps her from bolting back to her tent when she catches sight of the dark figures moving around the bonfire. Snatches of laughter and the sound of clinking glasses occasionally rise over the crackle of the fire and the low murmur of conversation. Somehow, she imagines she couldn’t be any more nervous than if she were preparing to lead an army into battle.

Clarke can feel the tension in her lover’s entire body where it presses against her side. If the way Lexa’s gripping her hand like she might run away at any moment wasn’t enough, the way Lexa’s sticking to her like glue would have told her that the Commander, brave and resolute in the face of almost certain defeat, is about ready to bolt. Clarke chews her lip for a moment and then decides that she’s not going to make Lexa come to this party without finding out why it’s got her so freaked. Gently, she tugs Lexa off the path and into the moon-dappled woods, where they’ll have a little privacy from any stragglers wandering in late.

“Hey,” she murmurs after glancing around to make sure they haven’t been followed, “what’s got you so on edge?”

Lexa frowns. “As we are not on any sort of precipice, I can only surmise that you mean anxious or concerned or –”

“Stalling,” Clarke says, crossing her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow. Lexa gives her a look that’s grumpy, yet guilty, and doesn’t demur. Clarke sighs, uncrossing her arms and forcing her posture to appear less severe. She’s at least managed to learn that from Lexa’s lessons: how body language can have drastic effects on negotiations. “Look, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” she says, after a pause to make sure that Lexa’s stubbornly going to continue saying nothing. “I can go down there, make your excuses, spend some time with everybody, and then I’ll see you back at the tent.” Lexa’s eyes brighten and she opens her mouth, presumably to take this option, but Clarke holds up her hand before she can speak. “I just deserve to know why.”

Lexa’s mouth snaps shut again and she looks stubborn, like she’s going to retreat to her default position, something like _Heda doesn’t need to make excuses,_ and Clarke thinks she’ll probably hit her for that – but then the Commander sighs and looks away, studying the dark woods at first, then the firelight trickling through the trees, and then her own boots. Anything but Clarke. At last she mumbles, “You remember when I told you that my presence puts a damper on…non-ceremonial gatherings?”

“Yeah…?”

“When…when I was young, Anya used to bring me to some of them, that she would have with her friends in the Guard. I understood that it was different then because of my age, but as I grew older, things became more…tense.” It’s very rare that Lexa stumbles over her words, and her entire body seems to vibrate with uncertainty. “I think it must have been hard for those my age, and even warriors many years my senior, to forget that one day they would be expected to obey my every command. It’s hard to fully…relax around someone whom you must obey without question.”

“So you haven’t been to a whole lot of these things, have you?” Clarke says, realization settling into her chest. Lexa nods almost imperceptibly.

“Well, it’s not too different from what happens after the ceremonial stuff,” Clarke says, attempting to make her tone reassuring. In the dark, she can’t see enough of Lexa’s rapidly suppressed reactions to tell if it’s working. “Everybody’s in a smaller group, and they drink a lot, and sometimes people get stupid but…sometimes they surprise you.” Clarke allows herself a small smile, remembering the almost frenetic way they’d celebrated their first Unity Day on Earth, with Monty’s almost undrinkable moonshine. Thankfully, he’s vastly improved his distillation technique since then (the tacit approval of the Skaikru Ambassador hasn’t hurt, of course).

“Drinking does tend to…loosen things up,” Lexa says at last, still sounding worried but a little less so.

Clarke will take her victories where she can get them. She reaches for Lexa’s hand again, laces her fingers loosely with the Commander’s, and gives her the most reassuring smile she can muster. “C’mon, Commander Wallflower,” she says, gently tugging her back towards the path, towards the firelight and the voices she can hear rising in laughter and inebriation. “Let’s go get you drunk to take care of the awkward. I promise to hold your hair back if you puke.”

Lexa glowers at her, but allows herself to be led. “Mockery is not –”

“The product of a strong mind, I know. But it is pretty damn funny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Feelings? Random musings? Leave em in the comments box.
> 
> Trigedasleng: 
> 
> *means I made junk up
> 
> Gona: warrior  
> *Inkskapa: tatooist  
> *Ink em op: I think this one's pretty obvious  
> Mounin houm: welcome home  
> Hodnes: Love  
> Pauna: Gorilla  
> Emo don jok choda op: They were fucking each other  
> Gyon au: go now  
> *Shiljus: Bloodguard  
> Taim yu drag raun, taim yu ge ban au: If you fall behind, you get left behind

**Author's Note:**

> I'm obeyheda on tumblr, come say hi!


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